


Contract

by Terminallydepraved



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Bribery, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Flirting, M/M, Magic-Users, Nudity, Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Some Plot, Spells & Enchantments, Witch!Connor, Witcher!AU, Witcher!Gavin, Witcher!Hank, witch!Nines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2020-07-07 05:30:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19845478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: Witcher contracts are hard enough to take care of when the prey in question is a nekker or vampire, but when Witcher Gavin is contracted to take down an illusion-based curse plaguing a nearby village, he's forced to face the facts: this job demands the assistance of a witch.It's just Gavin's poor luck that he only knows one witch who is unfortunately unavailable to take the job.But, then again... he does have a brother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lol this won the poll for this month and i gotta say i've been gnawing at the bit over the idea of a Lambert-inspired Witcher Gavin. like, c'mon, you can't tell me Nines wasn't meant to be Kiera, can you? It's perfect. Anyway. As always when I get excited about something, I ended up turning this into a first chapter of a sorts. If you guys like it I might consider doing more with this AU (nothing super long though; that's what Apotheosis is for rn). 
> 
> Also, I reference something in this that happens in the Witcher game when all of Geralt's witcher friends get sloshed with him. Check out this video for context on that because it's probably the funniest thing you'll see today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csvhxvHZ1fw

Sweat plastered Gavin’s shirt to his chest, the blistering sun beating down on him with a vengeance. The forest was hot and humid, sticky and disgusting and—

“Fucking shit,” Gavin swore, smacking away the fourth giant ass insect to come buzzing towards his face for a free meal. The guts splattered against his palm, and with a scowl he wiped the mess on his trouser leg. “Why the fuck do you have to live this far out in the middle of nowhere?” he snarled, stomping through the tall grass and through another thicket of thorns. Most witches preferred city-life, so why didn’t this one too?

Maybe this was just what he got for needing a witch at all. Gavin let out a loud, satisfying sigh and kept on hiking. Damn job. That fucker owed him a hell of a lot more than he’d offered for this bullshit. 

That was the job though, and Gavin bitterly cursed it for that as he stomped over a particularly dense bush and pushed his way through a few low hanging branches. Being a Witcher was a thankless job most days, pure misery the rest, and trudging through the woods in search of a witch’s abode just about summed up where this particular job laid on the spectrum. Gavin shouldered his way into a clearing and paused to catch his breath. The house in question was just ahead. Thank god for that. He’d just about reached his limit.

The witch’s house wasn’t built on the ground like any normal person’s might have been. It was located high above Gavin’s head, nestled in the boughs of a large tree that seemed to spit in the face of the very idea of entertaining guests. Gavin approached the base of the trunk and looked high and low for any sign of a ladder or lift. He naturally came up empty in the search, and it figured. It really, really did. 

“You better be the best damn witch this side of Novigrad,” Gavin snarled, beginning the painstaking task of scaling the fucking tree in full armor. 

It was grueling work. Sweat stung his eyes. His foot slipped a time or two, and by the time he reached the branch that made up the house’s front walk, he was soaked in sweat and sap, chock full of splinters, and too damn fed up to bother wondering if the witch were even at home. Gavin hammered on the door with his fist and leaned against it. 

“You home, Nines?” he called loudly. “It’s Gavin. The Witcher.”

A few moments passed filled with the soft sound of birdsong. Gavin listened closely, narrowing his eyes. No answer. 

He spared a single glance back down to the ground. It would be a long climb to turn back now. He contemplated the state of his hands, then sneered. 

Gavin let himself in…

...and immediately walked headfirst into a wall of steam.

“What the fuck?” he grunted, grimacing as the hot, moist air clung to his already burning skin. “Nines?” he called out louder, waving his hands as if to dispel the thick mist. “Are you in here?”

A low, put upon sigh answered him. “I don’t recall inviting you in.”

Gavin couldn’t see a foot in front of him. He held out his hands and slowly moved away from the door, inch by inch, careful of running into something sharp or magical enough to hurt him. “Yeah, well, I didn’t climb your damn tree just to be ignored. Where the fuck are you? We need to talk.”

With the door open, the room slowly became clearer. Nines’s voice was towards the back of the large, front room. “I’m a little busy right now,” he said, and Gavin frowned when he heard what sounded like shifting water a moment later. “Go away.”

Bits and pieces of the room slowly came into focus. First a stack of books near Gavin’s boot, then a little bit further away as he glimpsed the edge of a large chest. It didn’t smell like magic in here, or at least, not active magic. The steam was laden with the scent of juniper and mint, and tasted like water above all else. Gavin narrowed his eyes, urging his enhanced senses to see through the weakening fog. 

“No way in hell am I leaving—” he began, only to cut himself off the second he saw that Nines wasn’t reclined in a chair or off near his scrying mirror. No, that would’ve been too lucky for someone like Gavin to walk in on. 

It was thanks to the thinning steam and his enhanced eyes that he managed to see to the far end of the room. Of course, Gavin didn’t feel very thankful when he registered the sight for what it was. Namely, Nines naked, lounging in a large, steaming basin full of scented water. The witch had either designed his home with an enormous bath in the front room or had specially created it on a whim for convenience’s sake. Either way, he luxuriated in it wholly. The scents Gavin smelled were from the bottles of scented oil strewn around the base of the tub. His discarded clothes were nowhere to be found. 

Nines’s eyes were half-lidded when Gavin finally deigned to meet them, his pale skin tinged with a soft pink flush. He looked at Gavin balefully, no hint of embarrassment in sight. 

“Then at least close the door behind you,” he muttered, lifting a hand out of the water. He flicked his fingers, sending a few droplets flying, and Gavin startled as the door slammed shut behind him. Cool blue eyes stared at him witheringly for a moment. “You’ll let the steam out.”

Why someone would want to fill a room with steam with the day blisteringly hot outside was beyond Gavin, and probably for good reason. If he started to find logic in the idiosyncrasies of a witch, he’d call himself mad. Case in point was Nines not even caring enough to look at him now, fixated as he was on wetting his dark hair. Gavin curled his hands into abortive fists a few times, shifting from one foot to the other. 

It was awkward, doing this the way he was, but awkward beat not doing it at all. 

“Sorry for barging in,” he said finally. Polite wasn’t something he ever tried to be, but after coming in like that and winding up like _this,_ he felt it fitting. Gavin cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m a Witcher, and we need to talk.”

Nines didn’t even blink. “Do we?”

Gavin balked. He furrowed his brow, and decided to cut to the chase. “Do you know how to dispel illusions?”

The water rippled, fluttering in waves as Nines moved to rest his arms on the ledge, and then his head on his folded arms. “Naturally.”

Some small part of Gavin relaxed. Good. Perhaps this hellish trip hadn’t been for naught after all. “Good. There’s a job for us about thirty miles south of here—” 

Nines lifted his head and tsked at him until he stopped talking. _“We_ have a job? I don’t think we do, Witcher… Gerald, was it?”

“It’s Gavin,” he cut in, narrowing his eyes.

Nines brought a hand to his mouth. “Oh, of course, how could I forget?” He paused, his brows rising as if in sudden epiphany. “Oh, I know. I suppose the last time I saw you was when you decided to try dressing a little differently to, what was it? To get this bitch to come over?”

“That’s—” Gavin’s face burned with mortification. Of course. Of fucking _course_ this little shit would remember that. The _one_ time he’d left Hank get him drunk and they ended up doing something as embarrassing as that. “I didn’t think you’d remember that.” 

This time, Nines’s expression was entirely too gleeful. “Tell me: did you think your efforts would end better this time if you kept yourself out of my brother’s corsets?”

Gavin held his ground. “I don’t know,” he posed, crossing his arms. “Is it working?”

To his surprise, Nines actually gave him an assessing look. His lips curled into a slight smile once he made his way back to Gavin’s face. “While we’re on the topic, how is my brother?” he asked, bypassing the question entirely. “It’s been an age since I last saw him around here.” 

The change in topic was both a blessing and a curse. Connor wasn’t someone Gavin enjoyed _seeing,_ let alone talking about. He’d only met him a few times at Kaer Morhen. Hank’s pet witch, as the others tended to call him. Not to his face of course— they all tended to like _having_ faces, so they saved that sort of talk for when they were alone. 

“I didn’t come here for small talk,” Gavin pressed, bypassing the topic entirely. It was safer that way. “I’ve taken a job and I need a witch.”

“Fancy that. You _need_ a witch. I can’t say I _need_ a Witcher though. How about you come back in, say, four hours?” Nines suggested, sinking a little lower into his steaming water. “We can talk then.”

Gavin unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Fuck that,” he snarled, stomping his way towards the tub. “I’ve got shit to talk about with you, and I’m not leaving until it’s said and done.”

Nines rolled his eyes. He moved sinuously, peeling away from the ledge to rest his back against it instead. “Very well then,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Tell me about this grand illusion.” Something about the way he said it gave Gavin the distinct impression that he had intended to follow it with, _so I can say no and get back to my bath._

He pushed through the knee-jerk reaction to stomp over to the witch and drag him kicking and screaming from the water. Gavin inhaled, exhaled, and crossed his arms. “It’s an ancient illusion around a tower down south,” he said woodenly, figuring if anything Nines might appreciate the bluntness. “Probably Elven, maybe not. Every time a villager goes to close to it they get trapped in a nightmare they can’t escape.”

“Then how do they know what the illusion is?”

“What?”

Nines cracked open an eye. “If no one escapes,” he clarified. “How would they know?”

Gavin stared at him hard. “Because I investigated it before I came here?” he said plainly, hoping that Nines felt insulted. “I’m not some gap toothed hayseed. I know how to stick my hand in without getting pulled into the thick of it.”

“Of course,” Nines chuckled, closing his eyes once more. “You just don’t know enough to break it. That’s why you believe you need me.”

“That pretty much sums it up.” With Nines not looking, Gavin felt a little better about staring at the pale line of Nines’s throat. His hair was damp and slicked back, and his cheekbones were inhumanely sharp. He looked as perfect as every witch did. It was… unfortunate that he was such a colossal bitch on top of being attractive and powerful too. His voice threatened to crack when he said, “Got any questions?”

“The only thing I’m curious about is why you came to me for this. How do you know I’m the one you need?” Nines lifted his arms from the water to stretch them luxuriously, showing off the muscles of his biceps and the long, enticing paleness of his flawless skin. He made the softest, littlest moan of satisfaction, the noise bleeding into his speech as he carried on, “I don’t typically take jobs the way you Witchers do. I’m not especially charitable, and I don’t care much for gap toothed hayseeds, as you put it.”

Ah. Well. In all honesty, he hadn’t wanted to ask Connor, but his social circle was exceedingly limited as it was, magic-practitioners aside. He’d spoken to Nines all of three times in his life. All he’d gathered from those conversations was that Nines was a major bitch to deal with but talented enough at what he did to make up for it. It didn’t hurt that he wasn’t hard on the eyes either. That alone almost made this runaround worth it. 

Almost. 

“You’re the best witch for the job,” Gavin grated, the praise like pulling teeth. If there was one thing he’d learned from watching Hank with Connor, it was that witches were as weak to flattery as they were to pissing off Witchers. “You can break the illusion without letting it backfire. I’d say you’re cut out for it.”

Nines’s long, pretty legs glistened as he lifted them out of the water and rested them, ankle over ankle, on the edge of the tub. “Is that right?” he murmured, voice low, smooth, just a ripple that matched the slowly trickling water dripping off his bare skin. He turned his face towards Gavin, locking him in place with the vaguest hint of a smile. “It’s been a long time since I last saw you. Why should I bother helping you at all?”

Gavin pulled a face. “Because I’ll string you up and drag you back with me if you don’t?” he offered, only grimacing more when Nines began to laugh at him. “What? Don’t think I’m serious? I’m deadly serious, Nines. I just trudged through your fucking thorn patch to get here, and if you think I’m leaving with anything less than what I came here for, you’re—”

As he spoke, Nines drew his legs back into the water. Gavin hadn’t thought much of it— maybe he was cold? But before he could reach the end of his tirade, Nines had braced his hands on the edge of the tub, lifting himself out of the water entirely. 

Gavin was man enough to say he choked on the rest of his threat. He was man enough to say he’d just about swallowed his tongue, too. 

Nines was as all witches were— ungodly beautiful and terrible with the knowledge that he was just that. He wore his nudity with the sort of confidence that grated, as if making it your problem that you were having a reaction to it, and that he was beyond such paltry things like embarrassment or shame or—god forbid—gooseflesh. His skin was pale, his body strong yet soft as if he’d never cared to use the power his frame boasted. Gavin fought to keep his eyes above Nines’s waist. In that direction lay the root of all madness, after all. He’d heard the stories, read the tales. 

He knew what might happen to a man if he succumbed to the wiles of a witch. 

“Fetch me that,” Nines said, resting a hand on his hip as he gestured with the other towards a towel across the room. When Gavin just stared, Nines sighed. “Now, please?” 

Too stunned to argue and too flustered to care, Gavin did as he was told. He grabbed the soft, silky cloth from its rack and carried it over to Nines, averting his eyes when he got close enough to feel the dripping water and smell the fancy oils glistening on his skin. Nines took it and used it to pat himself dry. He naturally started with his hair, leaving the rest of himself completely and utterly bare. 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t, you know,” came the eventual break in the silence. 

Gavin lifted his head, eyes wide. Nines was finally moving to wrap the towel around his waist. “What?”

A sigh. “Your request. I didn’t say I wouldn’t.” Nines stepped down from the raised platform, padding over towards his mess of a wardrobe. A trail of water followed him as he went. “I just wanted to know why you seemed so sure that I would.”

“Because,” Gavin said, only wincing a little when his voice came out rasped and low. “You’re needed”

Nines sighed again, letting his towel fall to the floor. He looked into his wardrobe and considered his options, granting silent permission for Gavin to look his fill— though, perhaps that was just wishful thinking on Gavin’s part. “I’m not my brother, you know,” Nines muttered, pulling down silk shirt after silk shirt, tossing them to the floor until he had a veritable garden of colorful fabrics blooming around his feet. “He’s always working with that one Witcher of yours, but I think you know why that is. Those of my order don’t tend to mingle willingly with yours unless there’s something in it for us.”

“Well, your brother can’t help with this,” Gavin said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Nines paused, glancing over his shoulder. His eyelashes were so dark and full that they tickled his cheekbones every time he blinked. “And why is that?”

Gavin swallowed, mouth dry. “He’s off with Hank somewhere.”

 _“Off_ with him?”

How Nines managed to pack so much acid into one single word, Gavin would never know. He resolved to never letting Nines and Hank meet, for Hank’s sake at the very least. “Last I heard, yeah.”

Nines looked past Gavin to glare at an ornate mirror propped up against the wall. Gavin figured it was for scrying. Slowly their eyes met once more. “I’m not my brother,” he said again. “I don’t do anything for free.”

Gavin crossed his arms. The swords on his back rattled and shifted, reminding him of how tired he was, and how hot. “What do you want then?” he asked. When it came down to it, he was a man of business too. Doing things just to do them had never been the Witcher’s way. “Money? Part of the kill?”

Nines tapped at his chin with his finger, slowly turning on his heel. Still naked, Gavin noted in a small, pained voice. Nines slowly stepped away from his wardrobe and over his expensive looking clothes. “I don’t need money,” he said quietly, “and if I wanted ingredients, I’d just kill the thing myself.”

For some reason, Gavin felt the need to take a step back. He resisted it, but only just. Nines was closer now, eyes locked on him like he could see something in Gavin that no one else could. “Name your price,” Gavin grunted. “I’m sure I can pay it either way.”

“My, that’s good to know. But would you?” Nines wondered, nearly within arm’s reach now. The stray notes of light that bled through the pockmarked roof of his home drew small slivers on his skin, glowing against the pale expanse until Gavin wondered if he was being taken in. Nines slowly cocked his head and drew his fingertips down Gavin’s sternum. “I don’t think I want much. Will you still give it to me?”

His touch didn’t burn. It didn’t chill. It didn’t do anything Gavin half expected it to do— but it did smolder. Gavin’s blood warmed, responding to the unspoken words lingering in Nines’s request. This was how his brother had gotten his hooks into Hank, wasn’t it? Only it wasn’t soft brown doe eyes doing the deed, but cool, aching blue. 

“You’ll do the job,” Gavin whispered. Suddenly the smallest breath felt too loud for this conversation. “Right?”

Gavin colored as Nines leaned closer, his sweet breath panning over his face in a warm cloud. “Of course. But after you’ve paid me for it,” Nines decided, looping his arms around Gavin’s neck. “Is that agreeable to you, kind Witcher? Do you think you can handle that after such a long trek through my thorn patch?”

A tiny little voice in the back of Gavin’s head—the one that sounded entirely too much like his old teacher Fowler—told him it was a bad idea. Witches were witches— dangerous, bewitching, cold. He’d learned that time and time again, listening to the stories told by his fellow witchers, of the embarrassments they had suffered after letting a witch pull the wool over their eyes, but… 

Nines’s lips were warm against his cheek. His thigh was thick and hot, a line burning between his own. Gavin felt gentle fingers comb through his hair, the first tender touch he’d experienced in… 

It made it hard, all things told, to reconcile this tender touch with the danger he’d been taught for so long. But that was simply life for a Witcher, wasn’t it? Danger, danger, danger. 

Gavin let his hands fall to Nines’s trim waist. Then, he let them go a little lower. He knew danger, breathed it, lived it. A little more… _probably_ wouldn’t spell the end of him. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, burying his face in the crook of the witch’s neck. Even if it did, Nines smelled a right side better than any of his usual alternatives. “I think we can make that work.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure where we're going with this but people seemed to like it so i suppose we shall just see what happens! enjoy!

A loud, sonorous snore tore through the room with all the grace and dignity of a stampeding wyvern. Nines paused in flipping through his latest grimoire and took a deep, slow breath. He closed his eyes. He did his best not to set fire to the bed behind him. 

_ Witchers,  _ he thought derisively. Brutes, one and all. How his older brother could put up with it, Nines would never understand. 

Another snore, this time followed by a muffled grunt as Gerald— No,  _ Gavin,  _ Nines reminded himself as he opened his eyes to look at the witcher in his bed. This one had no patience for teasing— rolled over in his sleep. He’d started out on one side but had quickly splayed out like a prone ox, rolling this way and that, snorting and snuffling and pushing his way into Nines’s space until he’d been forced to vacate the bed entirely. The sheets were a hopelessly tangled mess around his legs. If the cold bothered his naked skin, he clearly didn’t care enough to wake up and fix them. 

Nines’s eyes narrowed slowly. He leaned against the back of his chair, skimming along the view. Gavin certainly seemed comfortable. It was a little hard to believe he’d only shown up yesterday, sword on his back and teeth gnashing at him from the doorway in his desperate bid to seek help from the only one capable of helping him. Nines supposed a full night of creative positions and magically enhanced oils worked well to break the ice. 

He licked his lips lightly and stifled a soft exhale as his body gave an aching twinge as he stood. Despite only coming up to his chin, Gavin was strong. His hands were big. Nines rested his own on his hips, shivering when they put pressure on the hand-shaped bruises stamped into his skin just beneath his robe. He drew closer to the bed and admired in a vague, cursory way how the dappled light seemed to dance along the dips and canyons of his scars, his muscles. The medallion of a wolf’s head hung from his neck by a leather thong. It’d toppled off his chest awhile ago. If he kept rolling around, he’d probably strangle himself with it.

“It’d serve you right,” Nines said under his breath, looking down at the floor where Gavin’s clothing, his clothing, and quite a few weapons and books were scattered. At one point he’d attempted to dress himself; despite most of his work requiring books, a desk, and tools, occasionally he had the odd herb to pick or outside resource to maintain. Gavin had bawled like a hound at the idea, snagging his wrist, dragging him back into bed. The whiskery kisses had been nice enough, but his poor outfit hadn’t survived the renewed burst of virile energy. 

Most of his garments were expensive things, silks and cashmeres. One look at Gavin told him quite succinctly that he wouldn’t be the one paying to replace them. Nines threw a terse glare at the witcher for good measure. “Ruining my bath wasn’t enough. You had to go and ruin my home too.” 

Gavin gave another snore in response to the unspoken thought. Absolutely typical. 

Perhaps it had been hasty to agree to helping with that fool’s errand. Nines wasn’t in the habit of working for others, even if it did bring in some needed income every now and again. He prided himself on being self-sufficient, but unfortunately there were always those few luxuries he couldn’t simply get by himself. Special reagents, rare items, some… 

Nines let his eyes trail down Gavin’s hairy, muscular chest. The sheet was made of silk so fine that it was very nearly transparent. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip as he spied the sizeable bulge nestled against one barely covered thigh. 

...some other things. No matter how talented Nines was, there were always a few things just out of his reach. He could try all he liked; all it’d get him in the end was disappointment and a cramped wrist. 

Still. The man was drooling into his pillows. Nines raised a hand and sent out a burst of intent. The curtains that kept the majority of the sunlight from filtering through the boughs of his tree opened with a low flutter. Light filled the room, and a bright beam fell directly on Gavin’s sleeping face.

To his chagrin, it still took five minutes of continued exposure for Gavin to react at all. 

When he finally did, it came in the form of a grunt. Gavin wrinkled his nose, smacked his lips, and then threw his hand over his face as if to bat away the offending beam of light. When that failed to get him the results he wanted, he tersely opened his eyes and took in the room around him. 

“Whuh?” he mumbled intelligently, his head swaying from side to side. After a moment, he noticed Nines. His frown turned into a sleepy, sleazy grin. “Oh. Hey. You got dressed?”

Nines raised a single brow. “Yes,” he answered. “I got dressed several hours ago.”

Another few lip smacks. Gavin cracked his neck sharply, wincing when the movement pulled at the scratch marks littering his shoulders and back. “Why’d you go and do that?” he mumbled, poking an angry red line curiously. “I liked the view.”

“You were asleep,” Nines mused, unsure of whether or not he should be charmed by the honesty or annoyed by the presumptuousness. “You wouldn’t be able to appreciate the view either way.”

“Then, you could’ve just stayed in bed,” Gavin groused, finally throwing his hand up to shield his eyes from the light. “Better yet, why don’t you just undress now? It’s too fucking early to be up. Close the blinds and go back to sleep.”

Nines waved a hand, the blinds fastening themselves open in a blatant display of contrariness. “It’s nearly noon. I thought witchers didn’t need to sleep.”

Gavin stretched and groaned as he flopped back into the pillows. “They do when they spend all night fucking a big bitch like you.” Before Nines could work past the shock, Gavin’s stomach grumbled. He rubbed at it with a hand and went on, “Do you have any food around here? Hell, do you even eat? I can’t smell anything in this place that isn’t some fucking herb mixture.”

Again, before Nines could answer, Gavin let out a sigh and muttered, “Figured a prissy little witch would’ve made some breakfast by now.”

Nines’s jaw twitched. He made a mental note to check Connor’s faculties for evidence of bewitchment. There clearly was no other reason for him willingly hitching himself to one of these… these…

“Hey, you in there?” Gavin grunted, waving his hand in the air. “I’m hungry.”

Nines turned woodenly towards the nearest shelf. “C’mon, you have to have some food around here somewhere,” Gavin went on, his voice trailing off a little as Nines grabbed the ornate letter opener and turned back around. “Hell, I’d settle for— Woah!” 

Before Nines could plunge the blade into the witcher’s exposed—and woefully sculpted—abdomen, Gavin seized him around the wrist and redirected the attack into the mattress beside his head. The momentum carried Nines into the bed, his knees bracketing Gavin’s barely covered hips. He tugged fruitlessly at his trapped wrist. Gavin’s grip didn’t let up; it merely tightened around bruises he’d left not even four hours ago. 

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Gavin snarled, shaking Nines’s hand until he let go of the blade. It stuck out of the mattress like a pin stabbed into a pincushion. Nines briefly mourned the mattress. It’d be such a pain to have another one transported this high up into the treetops. “I ask for some breakfast and you try to stab me?”

“If that’s your definition of ‘asking,’ then I believe you and I won’t be very good partners.” Nines narrowed his eyes. He lifted his free hand to grab the letter opener. He sighed through his nose when Gavin just grabbed that wrist too. “I expect to be treated with respect, Witcher. I’m not some whore you’ve paid to see to your every base need.”

Gavin’s stubbled cheeks grew pink. “You didn’t seem to mind doing it last night.”

Nines raised a brow. “And what makes you think I was seeing to  _ your  _ needs last night? You were merely satisfying mine.” He tipped himself forward, lifting himself higher onto his knees. Gavin was forced to tip his head back into the pillows to look him in the eye. “Following that logic,  _ you  _ should be serving  _ me.”  _

Lips twitching, Gavin exhaled sharply. “Huh.”

“What?”

Gavin rolled the pad of his thumb along Nines’s inner wrists. His hands were calloused, rough, but they still sent a poignant shiver of  _ something  _ down Nines’s spine. Witchers and their magic touch. It wasn’t fighting fair. 

“Just thinking,” he finally said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Hank said something about witches being ornery.” He tugged a little on Nines’s wrists, wriggling beneath him, grinning when Nines’s ass settled on top of his crotch. “Is it true about all of you or does it just run in the family?”

“I’ll still stab you,” Nines replied with a tight, fixed smile. “I can carve the definition of ‘ornery’ into your chest until you understand that it’s the wrong word for me.”

Scoffing, Gavin pulled Nines’s wrists closer, dragging him down until their chests nearly met. “I think I know ornery when I see it.” He spread his thighs beneath the sheets, staggering Nines’s foundation until he struggled to stay upright and aloof. “Just look at you. Already dressed, no breakfast, and you won’t even close the curtains for me.” He turned his cheek and dragged his stubble along Nines’s forearm, sending ticklish shivers along his skin. His eyes, a light, dancing grey seemed to laugh at him. “What do I have to do to make you sweeter to me?”

“More than you’d be willing to pay.” Nines had meant for his tone to be clear, cool, untouched. What came out was a far cry from that, splintered at the ends and permeated with the heat rising to his cheeks. Gavin was naked beneath him. Touching his skin, being this close— It wasn’t smart. He inhaled and tugged at his wrists. To his surprise, Gavin let go. 

“You’ll still let me try though, right?” Gavin asked, his hands falling to Nines’s thighs, smoothly traveling higher, squeezing his hips, cupping his ass, dragging up his thin garments before finding the bare flesh of his shoulders and neck. Nines’s vision blurred. Did the bastard know how good that felt?

“What…” It was Nines’s turn to wrap his hand around a wrist. Not to protect himself from an attack, but to keep that ripple of sensation there. He licked his lips and forced himself to speak, “What happened to  _ me  _ serving  _ you?” _

Gavin snorted, cupping Nines’s face with his big, rough hands. “I won’t tell if you don’t,” he rasped. 

Well. Nines closed his eyes. He hid a rueful smile in the kiss that followed, and he rocked against the waiting hardness hidden just beneath a single sheet. 

Perhaps witchers had a certain charm about them after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at some point theyll finally make it to the road... maybe next chapter XD

Gavin looked at Nines and glowered when the witch stared back. “Excuse me?” he asked, dropping the freshly packed satchel onto the bed beside the waiting rest. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

Nines of course simply raised a brow, his graceful hands folding yet another expensive outfit into a perfectly flat parcel. He’d already tucked over a dozen into his massive bag as it was. A part of Gavin was afraid of just how much luggage he planned on bringing with them. “It’s not that hard of a concept to grasp,” the witch replied wryly. “I think I’ve been tolerant up until now, letting you dirty my sheets and sully my air—”

“I don’t smell  _ that  _ bad!” Gavin interrupted, throwing down the— the what, the fucking camisole? He wasn’t even sure what he held in his hands, but he tossed it down onto the bed anyway, lacey, satiny fabric be damned. 

Nines wrinkled his nose daintily. “It’s like sharing my bed with an entire horse stable,” he said dryly. “In the middle of summer. That something has  _ died  _ in, Gavin.”

What was he even supposed to say to that? Could he argue back when he— Gavin paused his internal tirade to tuck his nose into his raised arm, giving himself a good, stiff whiff.

“See?” Nines said knowingly, telling Gavin quite succinctly what his expression looked like in the wake of the waft. “If this is how you smell  _ before  _ we head out on some fool’s errand of a job, I really don’t want to know what you’ll smell like during it. Get in the bath. Now.”

Gavin wanted to argue that if he’d just be getting dirty again, then what was the point at all, but he had a feeling a prissy little witch like Nines wouldn’t want to hear it. Witchering was filthy work. The sweat, the blood, the viscera from monsters that smelled a right side better dead than they ever did alive— it was just a part of life.  _ His  _ life. So, maybe he did stink to hell and back. Maybe it did make him wonder a little how Nines had put up with it while they were rolling around in the sheets together— 

A sharp snap cut through Gavin’s thoughts. A cloud of steam rose up from the large bath across the room. Nines lowered his graceful hand and gave Gavin a pointed look. “I already went to all the trouble of drawing it for you,” he said as if it literally hadn’t just involved him snapping his fingers. “Need I go to the trouble of undressing you too?” He paused, letting the words sink in before ending Gavin’s life with the slow, languid addition of, “Like a toddler?”

“You are just… the absolute worst,” Gavin muttered, gripping the bottom hem of his shirt to throw it over his head. He half considered lobbing it Nines’s way like some form of weapon, but he withheld the urge solely due to the thought of Nines drowning him in revenge. He stomped his way over to the bath and yanked down his trousers next. “You better finish packing while I’m in here,” he threatened, shooting a glare Nines’s way for good measure. “We’ve already wasted most of the morning with your bullshit ‘necessities’. I’m not wasting more just because you didn’t feel like folding shit on your own.”

Nines sniffed critically. “Well, maybe if I didn’t have to refold your every contribution this wouldn’t have taken quite so long.” 

The weight of his gaze was nearly as hot as the water as Gavin eased his way into the magically heated bath. Gavin didn’t blush at it; the redness forming on his cheeks was from the heat and steam. Nothing more, nothing less. 

“Is there anything you  _ won’t  _ bitch about?” Gavin wondered once he was fully submerged. As much as he hated to admit it, it felt pretty nice to be in a bath again, and a hot one at that. Usually he had to settle for washing up in cold streams, and sometimes even that was hard to come by. “It’s a wonder you get anything done with all the time you spend complaining.”

Of course, the criticisms flowed like a veritable fount even  _ after  _ he got into the water. 

“It’s a wonder you haven’t died from your own incompetence. Who taught you how to bathe yourself?” came Nines’s sultry tones, made less sultry by the fact that he was using them to bitch  _ again _ . “You need to wash, Gavin, not just sit there and slowly boil to death like a frog.”

Gavin glared at him, only somewhat surprised to find that Nines felt more compelled to watch his bathing habits than finish his fucking packing. “Oh, so you’re gonna micromanage this too now?”

“Do you want me to micromanage you like a child?” Nines asked, slowly crossing his arms as he sauntered closer to the massive tub. “I had hoped a big, strong witcher like you could manage this much on his own, but if you really require  _ more  _ of my services, then by all means, just ask.”

Frowning, Gavin fought the urge to bare his teeth. He could tell he was being patronized to the point of wanting to drown himself. Nines wielded sarcasm like a bladed weapon, wickedly sharp and liable to make you bleed even before you felt the cut. But then again, he thought as he slowly relaxed against the padded ledge... 

Two could play at that game. 

“Alright then,” Gavin said, resting his arms wide on the ledge as he looked at the witch. “Why don’t you show me how it’s done?”

This time it was Nines’s turn to say, “Excuse me?”

Sinking deeper into the warm, lightly scented waters, Gavin closed his eyes and smiled. “You heard me. You were just offering to lend a hand, right? I’m just a dumb, dirty witcher. Clearly I need an expert to teach me how to make myself presentable.” He paused there, a sleazy grin working its way onto his face. “Or, don’t tell me, that’ll cost me something too?”

The best thing about Nines being such a pale, pampered witch was that he absolutely couldn’t hide a blush to save his life. His pale cheeks colored a gentle pink, a shy rose vehemently struggling to appear as the thorns it had already had plucked. Nines crossed his arms and settled his weight on one leg. “Weren’t you the one complaining just now about not wanting to waste any more time?”

God, it was cute how hard he tried to stay withholding. They hadn’t known one another for very long, but Gavin had noticed a time or two when Nines played up the frigid bitch routine just to undermine how hard up he was for some company. Maybe he needed an excuse to let himself go completely. Maybe it was just his kink. Gavin didn’t know— probably wouldn’t for awhile until he worked his way into every nook and cranny the witch had yet to show him— but he was getting there. Oh, he was definitely getting there. 

Holding out a hand, Gavin gestured for him to come closer. “It’s not my fault you won’t get your ass in gear until I smell like something a flower threw up on. The sooner you get me up to your lofty standards, the sooner we can get the fuck out of here, right? C’mon. What do I have to do this time? You want my dick again? My hands? Want me to eat your ass until you cry agai—”

Another snap of the fingers, and Gavin didn’t have time to finish his sentence. He barely had time to catch the look of absolute mortification on Nines’s face before he found himself dunked under the water by some sort of invisible force from on high. Perfumed water flooded his mouth, stinging his nose, sending him flailing until he managed to get a hand around the ledge and pull himself up. He spat and coughed and wiped water out of his eyes. 

“What… the fuck… was that for?” he hacked, glaring at Nines blearily. “Are you trying to fucking drown me?”

Nines was beside the tub now, leaning over it with pink-tinted cheeks and a furious sort of indignity in his eyes. “That’s what you get for being crass,” he snapped back, reaching for a bottle of something on a far ledge. He poured a measure of the substance into his palm, the scent of juniper filling the air. “Now, get over here and keep your mouth shut. I’m only doing this once, so pay attention.”

Despite his tone, his hands were gentle when they touched Gavin’s hair. His fingers, long, clever, soft, carded through the greasy locks, working the soap into each strand in what felt more like a massage than a dedicated effort to get him clean and presentable. Gavin’s muscles slowly eased out of their state of wary tenseness. Nines was sitting on the edge of the tub, and he let his shoulders brush a firm thigh, wondering just how much stranger this situation could get. 

“You didn’t have to drown me like an unwanted puppy,” he said ruefully as those hands traveled down his neck, working out a few kinks he’d grown too used to living with to realize were even there. “Just saying, hey, can you get your head wet? That would’ve been plenty.”

“My bath, my rules,” came Nines’s quiet retort. “Now, can you wash the soap out of your hair on your own or do I need to dunk you again?”

Gavin pouted and half considered being contrary just for the hell of it. Then, he considered the veracity of the threat. In the end, he rinsed his own hair. 

“That it?” he asked once he was soap-free and looking at Nines. “Are we done now?”

Nines eased away from the edge and daintily crossed his arms. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his billowy shirt to keep it out of the water, but flecks of droplets still spotted the front, darkening the midnight blue fabric until it looked black. “You’ve gotten me all wet,” the witch said observantly. “I’ll have to change clothes.”

Gavin snorted. “It’s just water. You’ll live.” He folded his arms and rested them on the ledge, looking up at the pretty witch. “Just let it dry while you finish packing. I’m serious. I want us out of here as soon as possible… Are you even listening to me?”

He clearly wasn’t. While Gavin had been talking, Nines had been slowly unfastening his shirt and peeling it off. It fell with a quiet sound to the floor. Gavin frowned. There were puddles of water down there from his abortive attempt at drowning. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” he said, narrowing his eyes as Nines got to work next on his perfectly dry pants. “Why are you so hell bent on making my life harder than it needs to be?”

Nines’s long, pale legs slipped into the bath beside him. Gavin’s mouth went dry as he watched the witch slowly join him, naked, pretty, and with a look in his pale blue eyes that told him packing was the last thing on his mind. 

Gavin inched away, and Nines followed him. His back met the ledge. Nines practically crawled into his lap… “What are you doing?” Gavin asked, feeling a bit…  _ hunted,  _ was the word. Feeling hunted. “Wait, were you serious about me paying you back for this?”

They were going to be late. Later. Probably wouldn’t even get on the road until noon— 

Beneath the water, Gavin felt a hand land somewhere very, very sensitive. “Stop thinking so much,” Nines murmured into a warm, devastating kiss. He  _ squeezed—  _

And for once in his life, Gavin decided to listen. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is for briweicreative over on twitter! i figured it was about time to add in some hankcon to the mix and see where we go from here. just consider these all loosely connected oneshots!

“Connor, are you ready? Can I come in yet?” 

Connor sighed as the voice filtered through the room, meeting him behind the changing screen right as he readied himself to tightened the corset strings. The breath he had in his lungs was meant to get him through the compression, not shout back to the impatient witcher hovering just outside the door. 

“I don’t want to talk to you, Hank,” he called back, terse and short as he sucked in another bracing breath. Best Hank just get fed up of waiting and go on his way instead. 

But he was talking about Hank, he realized, and Hank simply wasn’t in the habit of taking the hint at all. 

The door clattered open and then came the sound of heavy footfalls on creaky floorboards. Connor sighed and snapped his fingers, letting the magic do up the laces of his corset to save him the time he clearly no longer had. He kneaded at his eyes. He wondered where he went wrong.

Probably taking up with a witcher, he figured. That usually spelled the end for most people who went down this path.

Connor slipped out from behind the changing screen and took in the witcher spelling his destruction fully. Hank was in armor, of course, tracking mud into the tavern room with his usual lack of consideration for the world around him. His hair was long, bound in a short ponytail that suited him a little too well for the temper Connor wanted to maintain. He was contrite and held his eyes downcast; all he was lacking was a bouquet of flowers in his hand to fully sell the regretful beau he was. 

Picking up his boots from the floor, Connor dutifully ignored his every entreatment. “What do you want, Hank?” he asked as he knelt down and began putting on his shoes. “I’ve only got this room for another hour and I’d rather spend that time packing than breaking in the bed.”

Hank cleared his throat. “Where are you going?”

Connor lifted his head for a moment and gave Hank an unamused look. The witcher had the decency to look somewhat abashed, but not nearly enough to make Connor feel good about himself. He returned his attention to his boots. “I don’t know,” he said, honest enough. “Wherever the wind takes me.”

A pause. “I’ve got a job.”

Connor let out a huff. “So?”

The floorboards creaked. Hank inched a little closer, meandering around in a way that was supposed to seem nonchalant and unintentional but came off as anything but. “It’s a hard one. I was wondering…”

_ Oh, joy, _ Connor thought dryly, fumbling a knot.  _ Here it comes. _

“Do you think you have the time to help me with it?”

Connor didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or sigh. “You do know I’m mad at you right now, don’t you, Hank?”

He wasn’t always. Most of the time he was inordinately disposed to Hank and everything about him. They’d spent more pleasant nights together than unpleasant ones, and aiding him with a job almost guaranteed more good ones were in their future. His weakness for this witcher was unseemly, and if he bothered to ask Nines how he felt about it, he was positive his brother would say that liking Hank was one of his worst personality traits. 

Normally Connor would scoff and say otherwise, but right now? Right now, Connor kind of hated how sweet he was on this man. 

“Come on, Con,” Hank sighed, leaning against the wall. “For old time’s sake.”

“Old time’s sake?” Connor scoffed, lifting his gaze from his boots. Hank really was lucky he was already pinned in the doorway else he might have done the job himself with his glare. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

Hank rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding his eye. When he spoke, he mumbled, “What else would you call it?” 

Connor lifted himself upright and rested his hands on his hips. “Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured, looking towards the sky for the divine intervention he neither believed in nor deserved. “A relationship perhaps? Though, I suppose you slipping out of the bed while I’m still asleep doesn’t really constitute much of a relationship, now does it?” 

The awkwardness on Hank’s face quickly morphed into frustration. “That was one time,” he muttered, crossing his arms tightly in front of his chest. “And I told you already, I had to—”

“To check on your horse,” Connor recited, clipped and cold. “It does a man’s confidence good to know he’s worth less attention than a horse.”

“Con—”

Connor turned his back on Hank to reach around the changing screen for the jacket he’d left pooled on the floor. “I know,” he snapped, dusting the black fabric with his hand. So much dust and thresh in this place. You’d think the owner had never heard of a broom. “I know your luck is rotten and you attract troublesome jobs like a corpse does flies, but a note, Hank. A note is all I ask.” He didn’t deserve much, but even he could say he warranted at least that much. 

The old floorboards creaked as Hank shifted his weight away from the doorway. Connor stood stiffly, back still turned, forcibly ignoring the witcher’s approach as he shoved his arms into his jacket sleeves. Before he could pull it on fully though, a familiar pair of large, calloused hands alighted on his elbows, traveling up the line of his arms to help settle the jacket into place. 

“I’m sorry, Con,” came the low, warm voice in his ear. Hank was standing close, his current mess of a beard never more apparent than when his whiskery voice tickled the skin of his neck. “I fucked up, alright? I admit it. Things got away from me.”

Connor sniffed as he crossed his arms. He turned his head slightly towards Hank’s mouth, enjoying the regular puffs of breath that warmed his cheek. “I should say they did.” Part of him wondered if Hank had actually left just to saddle him with the bill for the room. Pitiful witchers, always hard up for coin and cutting corners every chance they could get. “It’s like you don’t appreciate all I do for you.”

Hank went ahead and buried his face in the crook of Connor’s neck. His arms snaked around his waist, pressing them together until Connor could feel every centimeter of Hank’s armor, every inch of his bulk and shape. It felt… nice, as much as Connor hated to give him even an inch at a time like this. They had always fitted together too well to be simple happenstance; Connor blamed that compatibility on why they kept ending up in situations like this, Hank apologizing for something he logically couldn’t be blamed for while Connor put up a fuss for as long as he could get away with it. 

“I appreciate you plenty,” Hank said, a single kiss gracing Connor’s nape. 

Still, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Do you? Well, then consider me properly buttered up. You’ve come to ask me for something, right? Let’s hear it then. Since you appreciate me so much, that is.”

The body behind him stiffened, just as Connor knew it would. Hank, for all that the mutagens dulled his emotions and painted him as something unfeeling, felt more than most gave him credit for and telegraphed even more. “Um,” he began intelligently, squeezing Connor’s hips as if that would help him think faster. “There are some enchantments that need refreshed. Old ones, so it’s finicky. It’s an easy job,” Hank promised, and Connor immediately knew it was going to be anything but. “In and out, three days tops.”

Connor hummed. “Where at?”

A pause. Hank squeezed him a little tighter, peppered another few kisses along his neck. “Have I told you how good you smell today?” he mumbled, nuzzling into Connor’s hair. 

“Hank,” Connor chided. He was keen to this game. “Where is it?”

The arms around his waist went slack. A beat of silence followed, then a defeated mutter of, “Kaer Morhen.” 

Kaer Morhen. Stronghold of the School of the Wolf and about as far from their current location as could be. 

Connor couldn’t help but grimace. “Hank.”

“I know, I know,” the man quickly soothed, the scrape of his beard a delightful rasp against his cheek. “It’s the last thing you probably want to be doing right now, but think of the positives. It’s winter soon. There’s no better place to wait out the weather than there, and it’d give me plenty of time to make things up to you.”

“You’re going to make things up to me regardless of whether or not I take this job,” Connor said, mildly affronted. He twisted around a little, struggling to look Hank in the eye. “And not that I don’t find you and your fellow witchers charming—” He honestly enjoyed a good few of them, especially Jeffrey— “but I think we all remember what happened last time I graced the hold with my presence. My favorite corsets are still unwearable and Gavin—”  __

“I swear Gavin won’t be there,” Hank interrupted, swearing it dutifully. “He’s out on a long job right now and already sent word that he’s going to be away for the season. Something about some enchanted tower.”

Small mercies then. Still far from ideal. Connor rolled his eyes and looked around the room. He hated how weak he was to all of this. It was unseemly for a sorcerer to be this close to a witcher. Nines was going to tear him to pieces if he found out he’d gone along with this kind of thing again. He’d be absolutely livid, and Connor doubted he could blame his brother in the slightest for it.

He let out a low sigh and untangled Hank’s arms from his waist. “You’re lucky I have nothing better to do.” And that the half of him that loved Hank was currently outweighing the half that hated him. Connor brushed a lock of hair behind his ear, willing the redness in his cheeks to abate. 

Hank inhaled sharply. “So, you’ll do it?” he asked. Softer, he added, “You’ll come with me?”

When he used a tone like that, it was impossible to face away from him. Connor turned slowly on his heel and smiled at him, weak but there. This man. There really was no helping him. 

And really, it wouldn’t be all that bad. Kaer Morhen was a lot more comfortable now that he’d put his own touches on the upper rooms, improving the bed and cleaning away the cobwebs and blood that served as decor to the group of men that called it home. Add Hank to the mix—the best bed-warmer mutagens could make—and he had the start of an almost pleasurable vacation. 

The little “hmph” Connor gave was almost lost as he took a step towards the door. 

“You’d be lost without me, Hank,” he said, brushing past him as he stepped over the threshold. “I suppose if there’s no other option, we’d best be on our way.”

Behind his back came the sound of a low, humored scoff. The rolling of the eyes was silent, yet loudly implied. “Hope you’re ready for the long ride there.” Hank’s weight made the floorboards creak, his bulk casting a shadow over Connor as he trailed behind him. “I’ll shave my head before I let you toss me through another one of your portals.”

Casting his gaze towards the sky, Connor let out a peal of laughter. The hand at his side was already lifting— “Oh, poor witcher,” he sang. 

Today just wasn’t Hank’s day at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Nines on the road was only marginally more tolerable than Nines at home, as it turned out. 

“This is disgusting,” the witch scoffed. 

“I’m sure whatever it is, you can handle it,” Gavin muttered, eyes locked on the thin little lines on the map. One of them would take them back to the tower, and the others would take them… Well, Gavin wasn’t completely sure where they would end up. He didn’t make it a habit to travel around these parts, and knowing his luck they’d dump them in some hellish river, never to be heard from again. 

The witch walking beside him let out an annoyed huff. “Of course you’d be dismissive,” he said haughtily, no doubt pouting his cute mouth as he kept on trudging through the undergrowth. “You live your life wallowing in filth.”

_ Says the one who wallowed all over my filth in that froofy bed of yours, _ Gavin retorted silently. 

“Are you even listening to me?”

When Gavin kept quiet, more focused on the map than another tantrum, the witch snapped his fingers and froze Gavin’s shoes to the ground. 

Normally, Gavin would have enough grace to compensate a response like that. He’d undergone a whole bevy of hellish concoctions to combat little mishaps like that, but the combination of surprise coupled with his fixation on figuring out their bearings proved too much all at once. Gavin pitched forward with a yelp and went down hard. 

Leveraging his hands beneath him, Gavin spat out a mouthful of mud and glared up at the witch hovering over him. Nines stared back evenly, smoothly shifting his boot until Gavin was forced to look at the mud caked along its dragonhide sole. 

“We need to stop so I can change,” Nines announced, arms crossed and face pointed towards the trunks piled into the rickety old sled tied behind Gavin’s horse. “This isn’t up for debate.”

But that was the main difference between traveling and bunking in that magical nightmare of a treehouse; When Nines bitched out here, it was about the bountiful joys of nature instead of him. 

Gavin spat out what felt like a leaf and bared his teeth. Of course, that was only most of the time. 

He didn’t even know what Nines expected when he agreed to join him on the job. It wasn’t as if the prissy fucking witch had never traveled before, right? He’d done  _ something  _ to get from the sorcery academy to his current abode, and no matter how good you were at magic, traveling by foot was still a necessary evil sometimes. The forest wasn’t thick or overly lush. It was hot but bearable, drier than the humid hell Gavin had trudged through to get to Nines’s overly lauded ass, but still damp enough to make the ground treacherous to those inclined to care about the sanctity of their boots. 

“They’re just fucking boots,” Gavin snarled, twisting around to break the ice still holding his feet to the ground. “They’re bound to get muddy. If you change them now you’ll just ruin another pair.” Gavin had been there while the bitch packed. He’d witnessed with his own eyes just how many pairs of shoes Nines had insisted on bringing with them. If this was how he was going to get every time something dirtied a pair, they’d never get to the tower this century.

With a bitterness that gave him the strength to finally free himself from his restraints, Gavin forced himself back onto his feet and spat, “Just put up with it until we make camp tonight. You won’t die if you walk around in muddy boots for an afternoon.” 

Nines, of course, turned his nose up at the suggestion. “And you won’t die if you take a few blows to the head, but that doesn’t mean you should suffer further head trauma anyway.” He crossed his arms and popped his hip, the very picture of haughtiness personified. “We’re stopping, Gavin.”

“No, we’re not—” Gavin began, but Nines simply lifted a hand and waved it towards the cart, and everything stopped. Gavin immediately looked at the ground. If Nines had frozen his goddamn horse to the fucking earth… but, no. Tildie was safe and sound, tossing her head the way she did when the reins were pulled and she didn’t agree with being slowed down.

“Yes,” Nines said, either blind to Gavin’s distress or doing a fabulous job at ignoring it. He walked past him with a pronounced saunter in his step and approached the cart. “We are.”

The awful thing was that Gavin had gotten enough of a taste of Nines’s personality by now to know they’d already reached the point of no return. If Nines wanted them to stop, wanted them to stop so badly that he forced the horse to stop walking, then they were going to stop. Gavin threw his hands into the air and groaned. He stomped over to the nearest tree, gave the trunk a good kick, and when that failed to yield him much satisfaction, settled for leaning against it.

He crossed his arms tightly in front of his chest and watched Nines perch on the edge of the cart. There was barely a place big enough for him to sit given all he had brought along with them. Fucking insane. Who needed that many changes of clothes? Gavin got by just fine with his shirt and pants, and if something ripped, he could just patch it up. Or, you know, pay someone to patch it up. Carts of clothing and accessories made no sense in this kind of situation. 

He cast another glare over the bags burdening down his horse. She was a good horse, well trained and used to fighting monsters with him. It felt like an injustice to treat her like a pack mule. If nothing else, Tildie definitely deserved better. 

“Stop glaring at my carry-on and go fetch me the red soled boots,” Nines called out sharply, snapping Gavin from his rapidly darkening thoughts. 

“Can’t you just snap your fingers and fetch them yourself?” he sniped back, rolling his eyes. 

“And deprive you of an opportunity to feel useful?” Nines snorted daintily, leaning down to pick at the mud-caked laces of his boots. “I could never.”

At some point, Gavin realized it would just be faster to do as he was told. It was more time efficient, he told himself. It absolutely wasn’t him losing the argument. He wandered over to the cart and stared at the bundles of luggage it held. He knew the pair of boots Nines was talking about.  _ Where  _ they were though was another matter entirely. 

It took opening three of them before he managed to find them, and they came out a lot harder than they had going in. “Of course you pick the pair of boots buried under a mountain of bullshit,” he muttered, wincing as the back of his hand scraped against something sharp, pointed, and hopefully not drenched with anything magically malign. It took some finagling to pull them out without dumping the rest of the contents onto the ground. By the time Gavin had them in hand, he was sweating more than he had been trudging through the thickets they’d run into a few hours ago. 

Suddenly, Nines swore. Gavin wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up. 

At first glance, nothing seemed to be amiss. Nines’s bare feet were carefully held off of the ground, his filthy boots resting neatly beside the wheel of the cart. The leggings he’d chosen to wear were speckled here and there with some stray flecks of dirt, but the higher up you went the less you noticed. Gavin opened his mouth to ask what had crawled up the witch’s ass this time, but then the realization hit. His eyes locked on those tiny bits of dirt. 

No. No, it couldn’t be…

“I have to change the whole outfit,” Nines declared as he dusted his hands and looked at the bags around him. 

“You absolutely do not have to do that,” Gavin countered, tossing aside the red soled boots to stride over to Nines’s side. “Just brush them off. No one is going to notice some tiny bits of dirt when it’s obvious you’ve been traveling all day.”

_ “I’ll  _ notice,” Nines said, already digging through a bag Gavin  _ knew  _ had taken over an hour to pack to Nines’s impossible standards. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

Gavin covered Nines’s hands with his own, halting his progress. “It absolutely isn’t. You seriously can’t expect me to just sit here while you take four hours to change your clothing. We’ve got places to be, Nines. There’s a fucking tower sucking people into an illusion and the longer we take to get there, the more harm it’s going to do.”

Nines rolled his eyes, batting his hands away. “It’ll hardly take four hours,” he said dismissively, pulling out one carefully pressed pair of trousers only to reject it a moment later. “If you’re so concerned about wasted time, then why don’t you go do something productive while you wait? I’m sure there are a few blades that could use sharpening in that arsenal you lug around with you.”

“All of my swords are properly maintained,” he replied frigidly, watching as the bag was emptied of garments, one by one by one. With each article of clothing that left it, Gavin felt his spirit die that much more. “You’re seriously going to do this? You’re seriously going to make us sit here, asses out, while you change your fucking clothes because you got a little mud on your pants?”

“You were the one who asked for my assistance, Witcher,” he said dismissively, eyeing a silk tunic that he tossed aside after finding it wanting in some regard. “If time was of the essence, you should have made it a clause in our verbal contract.”

Gavin stared at Nines in utter disbelief. Nines ignored him entirely, all of his attention given to comparing two different pairs of trousers that looked identical from this distance. His bare feet casually swayed forward and back, held aloft from the dirt to keep them from suffering the same fate as his boots. Something in Gavin’s brain struggled to gain traction. He just stared, and stared, and stared…

“What do you think, Witcher?” Nines called out, holding aloft a sleeveless shirt that matched the cold blue of his eyes. “Would this go well with those boots, or should I have you find me a different pair?”

Gavin had found it, he realized slowly, silently. He’d found his limit, and it was a bare-foot witch surrounded by too many outfits to count. 

He was moving before he truly registered the last of his patience was gone.

The first victim turned out to be the shirt in Nines’s hand. It hit the ground with nary a sound, but the affronted noise it pulled from the witch more than made up for it. Gavin resisted the urge to grind it into the mud with his boot and settled on grabbing Nines by the arm instead, dragging him off the cart and back onto the ground. His feet were going to get dirty; Gavin registered the faux pas, and he didn’t care.

“What are you doi—”

Nines wasn’t allowed to finish. Gavin refused to let him. He manhandled Nines and covered his mouth with his hand, one arm hooked around his waist as he forced them both off the beaten trail and into a nearby copse of trees. Of course, Nines gave a token struggle. He wriggled and yanked at Gavin’s wrist, but even if the witch had a few inches on him, Gavin had the upper hand. If he could wrestle down a wyvern, he could put a measly witch in his place.

Gavin crab-walked them behind a few trees, pinning Nines to the thickest one within reach. They were barely within eyesight now of the cart, but Gavin wasn’t worried. Tildie wouldn’t wander off without him, and she was a good enough horse to make a fuss if someone tried to get too close to her or the belongings hitched to her. It’d give him plenty of time and leeway to… to do something.

He didn’t have a concrete idea in his head just yet, but feeling Nines writhe against his front was giving him plenty of inspiration either way.

“You’ve been a pain in my ass ever since we left your royal palace, princess,” he murmured, making sure to rock his dick against the back of Nines’s thigh. “At first, I thought you were just fucking with me, like you were  _ trying  _ to piss me the fuck off, but no. You’re just like this, aren’t you? You throw a hissy fit when you step in a puddle and complain when you don’t look like the perfect, untouchable little ice queen you are.”

Nines outright whimpered, the fucking pervert. Gavin didn’t have to do anything to get him to lean a little lower, to stick out his ass like a well-trained whore looking to make her evening coin. His fingers dug into the bark of the tree, gouging lines into the soft wood. “Gavin,” he breathed, looking over his shoulder with wide, stunned eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What am  _ I  _ doing? What the fuck are  _ you  _ doing?” Gavin snarled, letting go of a hip to yank on Nines’s trousers. If they were so fucking filthy, he’d just help him along, right? He dragged them down and reached a hand down his own pants to grab his dick and move it into position. Nines’s skin was so smooth, so warm. He could probably get off just between his thighs if he gave himself the chance to. But nah. That wouldn’t get the point across nearly as well as the alternative.

Nines inhaled sharply when he rubbed against him, teasing his entrance with the head. “We’re near a road,” he hissed, affronted and aroused all at once. He’d deny it, naturally. Gavin knew he would. “You’re… What if someone sees?”

The scent though… There was no fooling his nose, no pulling one over on his enhanced senses. He’d noticed it before, back when they’d broken in Nines’s bed in the treehouse. Gavin could be as crass as he wanted, treat him as roughly as he wanted, and Nines would get off on it. The witch had plenty of pride out of bed, but in it? Ha.

“And? What’s your fucking point?” God, he loved witches almost as much as he hated them, because Nines was already slick and tight and perfect. He could feel it as he lined himself up, the head of his cock teasing Nines’s entrance. The hips in his hands arched, the muscles flexing beneath Gavin’s hand. Fucking slut. Gavin thrust once and sheathed himself inside him. 

Nines let out a sharp yelp and lifted onto his toes as if he’d been strung up on Gavin’s cock. Gavin grinned, sucked in a breath, and went on, “You’d like it if they did, wouldn’t you? Changing your clothes in the fucking woods, whining ‘cause you got some fucking mud on your boots— It’s like you’re trying to piss me off! You get off on being a teasing fucking diva. Don’t get fucking mad at me when I put you in your place for it.”

Nines moaned, utterly unaware of everything that wasn’t Gavin’s dick fucking into him senselessly. His arms wound around the tree trunk, embracing it fully as it became his main form of support. The sound of wet, rhythmic skin-on-skin friction rose up to overpower the natural noise of the forest. Nines let out little huffs, little moans, and Gavin lost himself in it. It said something about them that they worked best together like this. Maybe it didn’t bode well for the job ahead, but it was something. 

And when it felt this good, Gavin figured he’d settle for something over nothing. 

But naturally—since the universe outright hated Gavin and actively sought out excuses to spit in his face—even that momentary satisfaction couldn’t remain perfect for long. Gavin found himself getting distracted here and there, something in the back of his mind flaring up like instinct or something like it. He tried to ignore it like he might an annoying fly, but before long he realized what was setting off his enhanced senses. 

Crackling twigs. Crunching leaves. Far off voices and the scent of horses that weren’t Tildie. 

Gavin let out a groan of despair that Nines clearly didn’t read as such. Something was approaching them, and here they both were, pants around their knees and entirely in no mood to deal with it. 

It wasn’t a busy road. Gavin had come this way a few times and he could count the people he’d passed on one hand and still have fingers left over to spare. He peered over Nines and around the tree he was propped against; through the foliage he could just make out slivers of color that didn’t match the green. The sound of horses tickled his ears, almost too far off to be perceptible. Nines clearly had no idea they were approaching. The witch was too focused on staying upright to pay any mind to far-off travelers or what they might walk up on. 

Gavin contemplated the situation. He gripped Nines’s hips tighter and slowed the pace to a crawl— to give himself some time to think, of course. Not to pull a few more of those needy little sounds from the overly spoiled witch. That would just be petty of him, cruel even, and Gavin was anything but. 

He had a lot of options in front of him though. A lot of them. Some were good, some were downright mean, but no matter which he chose, he figured he had a good chance at getting some payback either way. If he got them caught it’d teach Nines a lesson. If he kept them hidden, kept fucking Nines senseless even as they walked pass them…

Well, that’d teach Nines a lesson of a different kind, one that might get them both off faster than either of them ever thought possible. Having an audience was one of those things you thought you’d hate until you actually tried it. There was such a thrill to doing it where anyone could see, of the risk and heart-pounding tension of keeping quiet. Had Nines ever tried it before? Gavin had a feeling he hadn’t.

He let out a quiet huff of laughter and looked at how Nines had his eyes closed, his mouth wet and open. “Hey,” he said quietly, folding himself along the line of Nines’s spine to drag his lips over the witch’s flushed ear. “We have company.”

For a moment, Nines didn’t seem to register that he’d spoken. The sound of horses and voices grew a little louder as they drifted closer, and that of all things seemed to penetrate the witch’s pleasure-haze. His eyes shot open and his body went tense and tight. Gavin let out a low groan and rocked forward. God, he felt so good.

“What are you… Pull out!” Nines hissed, twisting a little against the tree.

Gavin stayed put and shoved his hands up Nines’s shirt, fondling his chest instead. “What’s the rush?” he mumbled, hips rolling more than thrusting, dragging slow, smoldering notes of pleasure down his spine.

“They’re… Someone’s going to catch us, you imbecile,” the witch insisted, though a good portion of the sharpness in his voice fell flat when it broke on a moan.

The voices were louder. Gavin could see the group taking the turn that would put them within line of sight with their cart. He ran his thumbs over Nines’s nipples and gave his chest a firm squeeze. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly, making sure to scrape the side of Nines’s cheek with his stubble. “If they hear you, I bet they’ll just think I’ve got a whore back here.”

“Is that… Is that supposed to be  _ comforting?”  _ Nines wheezed, clawing at the bark like an angry cat. But even as he spat the words and cursed Gavin in languages he couldn’t even begin to understand, he clenched around him, tight, tight, tight. His skin was flushed a bright, fetching pink, and the scent of his arousal was so thick in Gavin’s nose that it overpowered everything else.

“It’s supposed to be kinky, but I think you already knew that.” Just to hit the sentiment home, Gavin began to speed back up. The slow, dragging rolls shifted into quick, deep pounding. The best thing about fucking a tall, leggy bitch like Nines was getting to make use of all the strength his enhancements gave him. He didn’t have to worry about hurting the witch, about being too rough and holding too hard. “If you don’t want them to think that, I suggest you keep quiet, huh?”

Nines wailed in response. Not for long, of course. The sound barely left his throat before he was ripping a hand away from the tree to plaster it over his mouth, muffling the cry until it turned into a wet little groan. Nines twisted his head around to glare, but his eyes were so damp, his skin flushed a bright pink. The rhythmic little huffs were almost lost behind his palm, but Gavin could hear them. 

He wondered if anyone else could too.

The group had just reached the cart. Gavin tore his eyes from Nines to look through the trees. The group looked like merchants more than travelers, their clothing just nice enough to speak to a steady cash flow but not so nice as to allow them to take a carriage instead of the horses they rode in on. They were stopping, naturally, more than suspicious at the sight of a fully-loaded cart and horse alone in the woods. 

“Do you see them?” Gavin fucked forward and sandwiched Nines between the tree and his chest. He could feel Nines’s heartbeat pounding through his back, rabbit-fast. He made sure to stop moving just long enough to let Nines peer around the trunk and see just how close those merchants were. Putting his mouth next to the witch’s ear, Gavin chuckled. “They’re so close. Bet they think there’s something bad out in this woods, something that just might gobble them up.”

As if right on cue, a voice piped up from the road and declared, “Something fell must have befallen the owner.”

Gavin couldn’t help but laugh, rocking his hips forward into the tight warmth clamping down on him like a vice. “Something fell,” he muttered, licking a line up Nines’s sweaty cheek. “Do you hear what they’re calling you? I mean, you sure do gobble my cock up like a fuckin’ beast, but that’s still a little rude, right?”

Nines tossed his head and made an ugly sort of squawk beneath his hand that reminded Gavin of a cross between an affronted cat and a dying strygga. He probably hadn’t meant it to be loud, but the pace was approaching brutal now and any noise Nines spat out had the chance of being punched from his lungs with every forward thrust that came. It carried. It carried  _ loudly,  _ and Gavin watched the figures on the road pause in their cautious search of the surrounding area.

“Did you hear that?” one said, voice positively shaking with fear.

Another grabbed for the short blade strapped to his heavy waist. “Something is watching us!” he cried out, backing away from the treeline, face pale and sweaty. “We… we need to run!”

“But what if the cart owner is nearby?” another asked, the one closest to Tildie and all of Nines’s belongings. “Injured and in need of help. We have to help!”

“You hear that?” Gavin crooned, grip tightening on Nines’s hips as he felt his limit begin to approach. “They wanna help you. Would you let them if they found us like this? Would you let them touch you and fuck you and help you get off like the needy little slut you are?”

Nines’s eyes rolled back in his head. His hips moved on their own under Gavin’s hands. He was clenching like mad. Good. Gavin was about to blow his load too. Nines made another choked sound. Along the road, all hell broke loose in its wake. 

“They’re already too far gone to help!” a voice cried, followed by the sound of boots pounding against the dirt. Gavin didn’t need to look to know the man was making a run for his horse. “Every man for himself!”

“Kelan, wait for me!”

“But—! But if there are survivors—” A horse whinnied as a whip cracked the air. “Wait, don’t leave me here!”

In the span of less than a minute, every single merchant took off down the road, screaming bloody murder as they fled the monster-filled area. Nines dropped his hand—perhaps he was aware of their sudden privacy, or maybe he just couldn’t hold it in any longer and didn’t care—and let out a ragged stream of curses as he tightened brutally around Gavin’s cock. His orgasm was a violent thing, debilitating given his knees promptly gave out beneath him. 

Gavin swore and rushed to catch him before he could fall. His dick fell out in the process, but that was fine. All it took was a single brush of his wet cock against Nines’s bare thigh to send him over. He let out a low groan and took them both carefully to the ground. They sat there, pressed together and filthy, and gasped for breath. 

His arms were still wrapped around Nines, and he took it as an excuse to hold the witch tight to his chest. “That was great,” he sighed, kissing the back of Nines’s neck. The skin there was still so pink and flushed, the embarrassment turning his usually pale haughtiness into something that came off as almost approachable. “Can’t believe they thought you were a fucking monster. How much do you wanna bet there’s going to be a contract for this area on the posting board as soon as we reach town? Ha. That’d be such an easy buck. If we weren’t in a hurry I’d say we double back and take it—”

“You are hands down the worst man I’ve ever met.”

Gavin paused and looked at the witch in his arms. Nines was glaring down between his legs, his ears somehow a darker red than they’d been just a minute before. “Oh?” Gavin chuckled, easing up on his hold when Nines started to shrug him off. “Is that what you say to the guy who just got you off?”

Nines shot him a sneer. He rested a hand against the tree nearest to them and used it to help him stand up. There was a pronounced tremble to his movements, but the firmness of his expression helped make up for it. “We aren’t talking about that right now,” he returned. He turned his glare to Gavin’s limp dick still hanging out of his trousers, and Gavin rushed to tuck it back in. Given Nines’s mood, he didn’t want to risk it looking like an easy target. 

“Then what are we talking about right now?”

Nines colored and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He’d gone ahead and kicked his trousers off fully, and his loose shirt did an admirable job of covering his important bits from Gavin’s wandering eye. God, that was such a good look on him. His legs went on for miles and Gavin had to think that was one road he wouldn’t mind taking his time traveling. 

For a moment it felt like Nines wanted to say something to him. Gavin smiled up at him, slow and lazy, and Nines deflated, looking off somewhere else instead. 

“I’m filthy,” he said in a terse voice. “There’s a river to the west. I’m going to wash up.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “We really should get going, Nines.”

Nines’s lips tightened. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have made a mess of me.”

Sighing, Gavin figured it wasn’t worth the fight. He supposed he couldn’t begrudge him much if he wanted to wash up first. Compared to before, Nines really was dirty now. 

“Fine,” Gavin said, too loose and cheerful to put up much of a fight. He laced his fingers behind his head and shrugged magnanimously. “I’ll go repack your shit then. Don’t take too long. If you go around smelling like that you’ll attract some  _ real  _ monsters.”

Nines scoffed and tugged his shirt until it covered more of his thighs. “More like just the one,” he said with a glare. Gavin just laughed, and when Nines saw that his vitriol wasn’t landing, he let out a little  _ hmph _ and turned away. “My clothing better be packed to perfection,” he warned as he started off towards the river nearby. “I’ll make you redo it if it isn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gavin muttered, heading back towards the cart. He already knew Nines would find some fault with any work he did. It was just how he was. “Don’t blame me then if you tire yourself out before we find a place to bed down.” Hell, if he was lucky, maybe they’d make it a few more miles before Nines found the energy to throw another fit. 

“Did you  _ ejaculate  _ on my  _ shirt?”  _

Gavin grimaced and walked a little faster. 

Then again, maybe luck wasn’t his strong suit after all. 


	6. Chapter 6

By the time they cleared the forest from Hell, Gavin had never been so relieved to see a tavern in his life. It was the same tavern he’d lodged at a few weeks ago, back when he’d first traveled in search of the tower so many were talking about. The place was small, shoddy, its ale more froth and water than hops, but by the Gods if it wasn’t the best thing he’d seen in days—

“We are  _ not  _ staying here,” Nines said flatly, crossing his arms as they stood just inside the threshold. “This place is a pigsty. We’re getting better lodging.”

Gavin let out a sigh but for once didn’t bother to roll his eyes. “There is no better lodging, princess.” He’d anticipated this conversation about a mile outside the town limits, around the same time he remembered exactly where he was going and who he was traveling with. The tavern was definitely a far cry from Nines’s fancy treehouse escape. In fact, it probably would have surprised him more if Nines  _ hadn’t  _ thrown a bitch fit. 

And just the same, he wasn’t surprised at all when Nines huffed and dug in his heels like a donkey that had exhausted its will to move forward. 

“There has to be,” Nines replied. “This can’t be all there is.”

“Where do you think we are? It’s just a tiny little town on the edge of a forest.” Gavin grabbed Nines by the wrist and tugged him through the doorway. “Come on already. It’s this or nothing and I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as shit not sleeping outside again if I can help it.”

At that, Nines seemingly yielded. His lips tightened into a pronounced frown—probably at the idea of roughing it again—and he followed Gavin into the darkly lit interior. The scent of smoke from the far hearth was thicker than the stink of old ale and tired bodies. Gavin kept a hold on Nines as he wove them past the largely empty tables scattered around the main floor. He stared at each carefully, assessing its cleanliness; if he made Nines sit down at a less-than-clean table, in a less-than-pristine chair, he could only imagine the fit he’d have on his hands. 

In that regard they were spoiled for option at least. The place was practically empty but for a few scattered diners and drinkers, the vast majority sequestered far from the others to take to their victuals alone. Gavin placed them away from the rest, ignoring them as they were ignored, which was frankly the only way to be in a place like this. He had a feeling those lowered heads were peeking at them when their backs were turned, but that was fair enough; some probably recognized him as the Witcher who had come calling to handle their tower problem, but the vast majority took to strangers like oil to water. 

“This place is disgusting,” Nines said quietly. He went willingly enough into his seat, but his eyes tracked Gavin like a hawk as he rounded the table and sat down across from him. 

“It’s not nearly as bad as some of the places I’ve gone, so try to keep things in perspective.” Gavin looked over at the bar. The owner, ostensibly, was tucked behind the worn bar, sipping from a tankard. It only took the raising of a brow for the man to lift himself out of his slouch and knock on the wall behind him. Out came a young woman. The two shared words, and Gavin returned his attention to Nines. “You’re hungry, right? And you’ve gotta be as sick as I am of sleeping outside. Just put up with it, okay? We’ll head to the tower tomorrow morning and, with any luck, you’ll have the whole mess dealt with fast enough that we won’t need to spend another night here.”

“That’s a lot of confidence to put on my skills.”

Gavin shrugged. Then, he winced. All that traveling and dealing with Nines’s insane luggage cart had put a knot in his back that refused to leave him be. “I’ve been the victim of them enough to know you’re gonna get it done in no time. But for now, try to enjoy yourself, okay? Go on,” Gavin said, stretching luxuriously to work the soreness out of his shoulders. “Order something. Get a drink. Put on a cheerful face so I have something pretty to look at while I eat for once.”

For some reason, the witch stiffened at that. A flush of indignation tinted his cheeks, riding their sculpted heights even more dramatically in the low firelight. “I don’t know what they have,” Nines said, terse and clipped. “I don’t frequent places like this, Gavin. I rarely travel at all.”

The way he made it come across like an accusation was more than Gavin was willing to process after the trip he suffered through getting here. He rolled his shoulders and rested his elbows on the table. “It’s a tavern,” he said slowly. “They have tavern food. Stew and soup, probably bread. The ale is like water and the water is filthier than the ale.”

Nines’s frown deepened. “Charming options.” A pause. “What will you order?”

Gavin snorted. “Why? Want me to order for both of us?”

The witch stiffened and looked towards the hearth. His frown was now a full on scowl. “Order or don’t,” he muttered under his breath. “Just do something so we can get on with the real reason we’re here.”

Gavin raised a brow. Instead of pressing the issue, he raised a hand and waved down the red-cheeked barmaid. She was a young girl, pretty in the rough sort of way a place like this made a person. Her flushed, rosy cheeks paled quickly when she caught sight of the swords on Gavin’s back and the medallion hanging from his neck. She stopped a good few meters from their table. From there she called out, “What can… What can I get you?”

A sigh fell free before Gavin could hold it back. He should be used to this kind of reaction by now, but apparently some things don’t get easier with time. 

“What have you got to eat today?” he asked, noting the way she looked at him and then Nines like vipers liable to lunge. Her gaze kept tracking between them, but then oddly enough, towards a corner of the tavern at Gavin’s back. Probably just at the barkeep, he figured. Backup maybe. Moral support. 

Wringing her dirty apron in her hands, she lifted her chin and recited, “Mutton stew with potatoes and wild onion mostly. Got some rye from the baker this morning.”

Gavin glanced at Nines. He wasn’t sure how fond the witch was of mutton. It was peasant food, and Nines clearly viewed himself as something a step above. “We’ll have two bowls,” he decided. If Nines didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be hard to eat the rest himself. “And some bread. Two loaves. And have someone go out and take care of our horse and cart. We’ll need the luggage brought in and my horse stabled.” Gavin didn’t trust it to be left out for long, even with Tildie’s proclivity to kick unfamiliar faces that strayed a little too close to her saddlebags. 

“And some ale,” Nines added before the girl could open her mouth. He reached into a pouch on his hip and pulled out a few coins that then went onto the table. The witch’s eyes flicked towards Gavin before falling back to the floor. “Two, please. Thanks.” The amount tendered would more than pay for the drinks; it’d pay for the whole meal easily, plus the lodging. 

Biting his tongue, Gavin kept quiet as the barmaid rushed to collect the coins into her apron. “Right away, sir!” she rushed, already breathless. She whipped around and practically bolted for the kitchen. Gavin had a feeling they’d see their meals out here far faster than a person could blink.

“Well, that was charitable of you,” he said smoothly. “That was probably more money than she’s seen in her entire life.”

“Was it?” Nines said breezily, turning to admire the roughly hewn beams that made up the ceiling above their heads. “I told you already that I don’t travel much. The usual rates elude me in this part of the country.”

_ Sure, _ Gavin thought, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. It eluded him. Definitely. 

“Speaking of that, when’s the last time you left that tower of yours?” The barmaid really had made good time. Gavin glanced behind Nines and caught sight of her bustling over to them, both hands full with large flagons of the inn’s ale. “You gotta get bored just hanging around in there all the time.”

“I keep myself occupied. I read.” Nines sat up straight as his drink was set in front of him. He carefully held off on continuing until the barmaid had retreated once more. “I visit my brother when he deigns to journey to the same country as me,” he muttered, lifting his flagon to sniff at the ale. “The last time I left was— Oh, god, this is foul!”

Gavin began to laugh. “I told you it wasn’t great,” he said, lifting his own to clink their flagons against one another. He drained a decent portion of his own watery, disappointing portion in a single swallow. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grinned at the witch. “Just down it fast so you don’t taste it. And go on, finish what you were saying. When was the last time you went exploring?”

Nines gave his drink a dainty sip in a pointed protest to his suggestion. He wrinkled his nose as he swallowed. Fuck, it was cute. “It’s been a few years,” he said reluctantly. “I explore the forest when I need ingredients and there’s a small town not too far away that supplies most of my necessities. I have a courier who makes deliveries for me once a month.” 

Just once a month? No wonder Nines was so socially inept. Gavin whistled and took another drink. “That’s rough. At least this job will give you some excuse to dust off the cobwebs and have some fun out in the world again.”

“If there’s one thing this journey has been so far,” Nines said, eying him over his cup, “fun might not be the word I’d use for it.”

“Oh?” Gavin set down his flagon. “And what word would you use?”

Nines’s eyes fell to half mast. He smiled slightly, coy beyond belief. “Wouldn’t you like to—”

What the word was didn’t make it past his lips, and even if it had, Gavin wouldn’t have heard it over the sudden assault at his rear. A heavy weight latched onto him from behind, hard and angled, loud and boisterous as it laughed aloud in his ear. It wasn’t the jarring jolt to the back that got him, but the lilting exclamation of, “Reedy-Wolf? Is that really you?”

Gavin’s blood filled with icy dread. Oh, Gods. Oh, no, no,  _ no.  _

“It’s been ages! Here I am in this backwater piss-hole thinking the most action I’m gonna see is some two-bit mage’s shitty parlor trick, and who do I find?” The hands dug into Gavin’s shoulders roughly, fingers stabbing into the knots in his neck and delivering that pain-pleasure mix that only a deep massage brought with it. “It’s gotta be fate.”

It wasn’t fate. It was some kind of cosmic joke dead set on seeing Gavin murdered on the floor. He peeled the hands off his shoulders and batted them away. “Rywen,” Gavin wheezed, hiding his face in his hands. He didn’t even need to look at her to know she was already grinning. “Why are  _ you  _ here?”

Uninvited, unwanted, the table rocked as she sat down, wobbly piece of shit that it was. Gavin didn’t need to lower his hands to feel Nines’s scowl heat the air around them. Still, he dragged them down his face and stared at the two caustic components mingling together before his eyes. If he could have orchestrated this in any other way, he would’ve in a heartbeat. 

“You bailed on the job,” Rywen reasoned, propping her chin up with her fist. She looked the same as she had the last time they crossed paths, all lean muscle, lip scars, and poison-green eyes. Her hair was a little longer than its usual cropped cut, the slate grey of it a shade darker from the grime of travel. She’d eschewed the bulk of her armor but still wore her medallion proudly on her chest: School of the Cat, as shameless as they ever were. “It’s fair game if you abandon a job, right? That’s the code.”

“I was gone for a week, tops,” Gavin mumbled. It really wasn’t so long as to necessitate  _ this  _ of all things. Gavin didn’t like how she eyed Nines at all, and he sure as fuck didn’t like the way Nines glowered at her either. “Clearly this kind of thing needs a witch. They take some time to find.”

Nines let out a quiet huff across the way. He looked to the wall and crossed his arms primly. “Sound more grateful,” he said, tight-lipped and haughty as could be. “Someone of my caliber would cost you an arm and a leg to hire on properly.”

“And instead he’s only down a few coins?” Rywen snorted, giving her eyes a roll. “What’d you bribe him with to get him out here, Reedy-Wolf? You tell him there’s treasure at the center of that illusion?”

“The nature of our partnership isn’t any of your business,” Nines answered, far too swiftly for Gavin to get in a word edgewise. “You’re of the School of the Cat, right? Shouldn’t you be off slitting some royal bastard’s throat somewhere?”

Rywen let out a whistle and eased back in her seat. “Testy, testy. Someone’s a touchy little witch. You know, I thought you magic-types were all regal and aloof. I find it a bit surprising they let a wet-behind-the-ears brat like you out of the School.”

Nines bared his teeth. Gavin immediately leaned forward, stealing their attention back. “Okay, okay, let’s not start a riot before the food’s even got here,” he reasoned, the dread manifesting in a cold sweat that prickled down the back of his neck. “I think you two got off on the wrong foot. We’re all friends here, so let’s try again.”

“Friends?” Rywen shot Gavin an indulgent sort of smirk. “Is that all we are? You’ll hurt a girl’s feelings talking like that, Reedy-Wolf. And after all the nights we shared together...”

“That’s… Uh, that’s not really…” Gavin was too scared to look at Nines’s expression. He had a feeling it wasn’t good. 

“Being shy now? Come on, Reed,” she purred, leaning across the table, her hand covering Gavin’s fist. “What do you say? I came all this way for some action; I think you owe me something for old time’s sake.”

The way she licked her lips was downright pornographic. It was insanely inappropriate too, but Gavin had a harder time focusing on that as her fingertips traced the thin skin of his inner wrist. He cleared his throat and pulled back his hand, but he could tell already that he hadn’t done it fast enough. Rywen grinned a saucy, loose smile and leaned back in her seat. Nines, on the other hand, fixed Gavin with a glare so hot that it burned. 

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Gavin said, the words hanging awkwardly in the heavy air. He didn’t know which of them to look at. Giving Rywen more attention seemed like a really bad idea, but Nines was the sort of temperamental that even a lingering glance sent his way might set him off like a powder keg. “That’s all ancient history. We should just leave it—”

“Ancient history?! Pfft,” she scoffed, casting her eyes towards the heavens. “It’s been barely half a century, and we parted on good enough terms. I never cut you in places you didn’t like, so I’d say that’s worth at least a fun reprisal.” She slowly looked back at Gavin, cat-like eyes narrowing as she took him in. Then, to Gavin’s complete horror, she turned her eyes towards Nines. “But I guess you’ve found something else to occupy you. A witch though…” She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Oh, Reedy-Wolf, you could do so much better. Can’t say I’m impressed with this one at all.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, Nines spoke. “Oh,” he said slowly, his own eyes narrowing as he pinned Rywen like an insect to tackboard. “Not impressed. May I ask why?” 

“Nines,” Gavin warned, scenting blood in the water. “Maybe it’s best if we just—”

Rywen’s hand snapped up, cutting Gavin off without letting her eyes leave Nines. Her smile was sharper than a dagger. “You really can’t tell?”

“Please,” Nines said in a quiet, lethal voice. “Enlighten me.”

Instinct screamed at Gavin to do something. Sweat dotted his brow. His heart began to race. With painstaking slowness, Rywen reached out to snag Gavin’s drink out from under him. She didn’t break eye contact with Nines for a second as she brought the flagon to her lips and took a careful sip. “He’s calling you Nines, isn’t he?” she remarked, smoothly side-stepping the question. “I believe I know your brother. Not well, mind you, but I hear about him. He’s got quite the name for himself, latched onto the back of that other wolf the way he is. You witches are all so alike; you consort with nobility and sell yourself to the highest bidder, but then fall so easily to the promise of something wild. I suppose that runs in the family then, doesn’t it?”

The energy around their table was swiftly growing erratic. Gavin tasted acid on the back of his tongue, his exposed skin blistering slightly from the heat of an invisible sun. It’s origin was clear as the witch asked, “What, pray tell?” Tone clipped, sharp, Nines glared and the heat only grew worse. 

“Witches and Witchers shouldn’t mix,” she said instead, smiling off into the distance. If she felt the danger in the game she played, she clearly didn’t fucking care. “It only leads to bad ballads and broken beds.”

“But Witchers can mix freely, is that it?”

“I really think we should talk about something else,” Gavin tried. Neither even bothered to look in his direction though.

Rywen shrugged easily. “Who’s to say? But like attracts like, doesn’t it? Reedy-Wolf here isn’t much of a catch, but he’s best off with someone who knows him. Knows what he likes.”

Nines’s smile was sharp, the air crackling around him as he spoke, “And who’s to say you know best what he likes? It’s been half a century for you, hasn’t it? Tastes change. Old flavors grow rancid on the tongue.”

The metal of the flagon dented beneath Rywen’s fingers. “Well, if that’s how things are…” She tilted her head and licked her lips. “Maybe we could all do something  _ fun  _ together. Sweeten everything up since you seem so keen on the idea that I couldn’t on my own.”

Gavin couldn’t believe his ears. “What the fuck, Rywen.”

She shrugged innocently enough, still giving Nines a look that was more dare than interest. “Acting shy now? We’ve done worse in the past together, so don’t go acting like a blushing virgin now. Not when you’ve got me interested, Reedy-Wolf. Maybe I want to give him a spin too. See if those procedures and augments were really worth all this fuss.”

She paused, every ounce of mirth acidifying in an instant. “That is,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “so long as the crotch on this witch won’t give me lice.”

Nines choked on his drink. He coughed loudly, rose to his feet, but before Gavin could see if he were okay, the witch was already recovering, already spitting through his rasped coughing, “And here I thought the title ‘Cat’ was just in name only, you gutter-minded, heat-stricken harl—” 

Speed and swift reflexes might not have been the main focus of his own enhancements, but Gavin had sensed it coming before Rywen’s hand went for her flagon of ale. He could see it projected behind his eyes like the world’s worst prophecy, a sort of vision from beyond that foretold a ruin far beyond Nines’s shirt should that drink meet its intended target. Nines would set the whole damn inn on fire— worse yet, he’d ruin their only option for lodging before they’d even gotten the chance to eat something hot…

Gavin didn’t bother thinking more than that as Rywen gripped the stolen flagon and drew back her arm. He dove in front of Nines and closed his eyes. 

The ale didn’t fare better on his face than it had on his tongue, but then again, Gavin hadn’t really been under any illusions that it would. He cracked open an eye and took in the soaked state of his shirt. “Great,” he muttered, shooting a glare at Rywen. “Real mature.”

His eyes widened when instead of a mature reply—or better yet, an apology—Rywen drew her sword. Gavin grabbed Nines by the shirt and yanked him behind him. “Did you hear what he called me?” she hissed, barely looking like she’d mind it if she had to cut through Gavin to get to the witch at his back. 

“You tried to strongarm him into a threesome, Ry,” Gavin hissed back, hand reaching for his own blade. “I’m not interested, and clearly he isn’t either. Fuck off already, okay?” 

Rywen bared her teeth. The air behind Gavin grew staticky and charged; Nines was gearing up to make her if she didn’t back down. Eyes darting between them, she bit off a curse in Nines’s direction before putting away her blade. “Fine then,” she spat. “I hope that fucking tower eats the both of you whole.”

“Leave already,” Nines snarled. “Or I’ll make you.”

Rywen hissed. She made a rude gesture with her hand and stomped towards the exit. Thank fucking god. 

“What the fuck was that?” Gavin muttered as he wiped ale from his eyes, panting slightly and caught between feeling pissed or sorry for himself for having a  _ type—  _ because this was clearly an indication of his proclivities and the manifestation of all his choices up to this moment. It made sense that having a thing for high-strung, mind-breakingly powerful beauties would get him into this kind of situation; it was more of a personal oversight that he never thought about what might happen if two of said type ever met face-to-face. 

He had an answer at least. An answer to the last mystery he could have ever wanted solved. Fucking hell.

A hand settled on his shoulder. Gavin dropped his hands and blinked through the moisture, only somewhat surprised to see it was Nines and not the goddamn tavern owner here to kick them all out for disturbing the rest of the customers. 

Nines licked his lips and couldn’t seem to meet his eye. He kept looking towards the door, following the retreating path Rywen had taken as she left. “Are you…” he began quietly, hand squeezing Gavin’s shoulder. “Are you alright?’

“Yeah,” Gavin sighed, flicking his hands out to whip off some of the excess beer. “Just fucking wet. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Fuck, I forgot just how nasty she could be. I’d say she’s not always like that, but it’d be a fucking lie.”

The hand tightened, then loosened as Nines let his hand slide down Gavin’s arm. “You didn’t have to do that,” he murmured. His gaze was fleeting, but finally there. “I had a spell prepared. I could have dealt with it myself.”

“Not without blowing the whole roof off this place and probably getting yourself killed, you couldn’t. She’s a witcher, Nines. She’s got all the bells and whistles I’ve got but less restraint when it comes to keeping it all in check.” Gavin sighed, imagining it despite his best efforts. Rywen was unstoppable when pissed, ferocious when slighted, and she had the same bad attitude towards humanity at large that her School held in such high regard. Witchers were freaks and witches were freaks with better paying jobs; if she’d already viewed Nines as an enemy, as someone she could and should kill if the opportunity arose, then she would’ve said anything if it meant getting Nines to fight her back. “She wouldn’t have let a spell or two stop her from slitting your throat. When she gets worked up like that, losing a limb or two is fair pay so long as she takes someone else down with her.”

Nines made a sound in his throat, derisive and disbelieving. “What did you ever see in her?” he muttered, wrapping a hand around Gavin’s wrist to tug him deeper into the tavern’s interior. With just a glance towards the cowering barmaid he was able to discern the location of their room; a neat parlor trick. Gavin had seen Connor do the same before with Hank. Probing thoughts, seeking answers. It made him wonder sometimes if Nines ever did the same to him. 

Sighing, he shrugged, too cold and wet and miserable to bother caring at a time like this. “We were both younger,” he said, even though it didn’t sound like such a good excuse anymore. “It’s like I said before: ancient history. What are we doing? We didn’t even get to eat yet.”

Nines paused with them right outside a nondescript door. “Getting you cleaned up,” he said, opening it without breaking eye contact with Gavin. 

“You do know our belongings are still outside, right?” Including all of Gavin’s extra clothing. The single shirt tucked away in one of Tildie’s saddlebags. The spare breeches he had folded into his bedroll to pad the pillow that was so flat that it was hardly better than the ground he usually slept on. 

The witch just stared at him, pulling him into the room. 

As far as tavern lodging went, the place was barebones. A simple bed, a dresser, a wash basin resting on top: it took hardly a moment to take in the room and even less to write it off in favor of the witch holding him in thrall. Nines guided them through the door and locked it with the plain little latch provided. He pressed a hand to Gavin’s chest and walked him backwards until a wall forced their progress to halt. 

“Nines?”

“You didn’t have to do that,” the witch repeated, eyes falling slightly, no longer looking into Gavin’s. “I’m not some maiden with fragile honor in need of defending. I can fight my own battles. I can take my own hits.”

Gavin snorted, lifting his hands to rest them on Nines’s waist. He wasn’t sure where this was going, and yet it still felt right to touch him. “And let you ruin another outfit? I’d be hearing about it for the rest of the night if I let that happen.” 

Instead of rebuking the contact or making a comment about it, Nines just came even closer. He leaned down, rested his face in the crook of Gavin’s neck. The heat of his cheeks was startlingly warm; the ale shower must have lowered his temperature or something. It wasn’t unpleasant though. The whole thing sort of came across as a hug, but that couldn’t be right, could it? They didn’t hug. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. 

Before Gavin could comment on it, something wet and hot brushed the skin of his neck. 

“Can’t you just clean me up with magic?” Gavin’s voice nearly croaked. He tightened his grip on Nines’s hips. Suddenly, such a loose hold didn’t feel like enough. And here he thought Nines hated the taste of the bar’s cheap swill. A giddy voice in the back of his head couldn’t help but cackle,  _ maybe it tastes better like this. Maybe  _ you  _ make it bearable.  _

Almost as if in response to his thoughts, Nines’s lips kissed a few words against his throat: “That would be too easy.”

Gavin shuddered when those lips stopped teasing. A warm, wet tongue—and it was a tongue, because Nines was fucking  _ licking him— _ lapped along his throat, tracing the vein higher to suck a mark behind his jaw. “Y-You know,” he managed, voice quaking when Nines’s hands joined the fray, “this really wasn’t what I expected when we finally managed to get ourselves to town.”

“That’s fine,” Nines crooned against the shell of his ear. He began to move lower again. And lower. “You’re clearly not much of a planner.” Lower. “You’ve made a mess of yourself.” Lower. “Just let me clean you up.” Lower. The laces on Gavin’s shirt came loose one by one by one. Nines’s voice lowered into a possessive growl. “Let’s show her just how well witchers and witches mix, shall we?”

And Nines tore through his shirt and fell to his knees, Gavin figured he should look at the bright side: at least Nines  _ probably  _ wasn’t in danger of setting fire to the place anymore. Gavin’s sanity, however? Well, that was definitely fair game all around.


	7. Chapter 7

Kaer Morhen rose up to greet them like the stalwart sentinel it’d been for generations of witchers made within its crumbling walls. Connor looked up at it with a mixture of distaste and nostalgia that never quite disappeared after all his visits here. The magic that went into its creation was eons old, steeped into the very ground beneath their feet. 

“I can feel it,” he said, resting his cheek against Hank’s solid shoulder. “The enchantments are out of balance even from this far away.”

Hank glanced over his shoulder, hands tight on the reins as he directioned Sumo up the steep, treacherous slope that would carry them to the front gates. The horse knew the way already, probably better than Hank to be honest, but taking care around such old magic was never a bad idea. “I told you so. Jeffrey’s been doing his best to keep things patched up, but there’s only so much he can do without an expert helping him out.”

An expert. That was rich. “Just because I practice doesn’t mean I know millenia-old enchantments, Hank,” Connor warned. “This may be out of my range of capabilities.”

Connor felt Hank’s huff of laughter. “There’s no such thing.” 

“Flatterer.” Connor smiled, nuzzling Hank’s shoulder. “I suppose there’s no way to know until we get there.”

Even with that said, Connor could feel the frayed enchantments as they washed over him. Every step Sumo took towards the keep made the damage all the clearer, all the more pressing. His content smile slowly morphed into a tense frown. By the time they were dismounting, Hank leaving to put Sumo in the stable, Connor was thoroughly unsettled. 

Kneeling, he buried his fingers in the cool soil and murmured a few words. 

“What’s the verdict?” a new voice called out behind him. Connor opened his eyes and turned to see Jeffrey, arms open, smiling like the kind old man he was. “What? We all work and no play here? How have you been, Connor?”

“Jeffrey,” Connor breathed, rising to his feet. He let out a bubble of laughter as he met the old man with the embrace he was clearly gunning for. His eyes opened wide though when the man lifted him off the ground. “Woah! I guess you missed me, huh?”

“It’s been awhile, you can’t blame an old man for being nostalgic.” Jeffrey set Connor back on the ground, hands staying on his shoulders to look him over. His weathered, dark face was beaming, his crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes as he let out a breath and admitted, “You look as lovely as ever. It’s good to see you back here. It’s been too empty these days.”

Connor looked at the keep. “Is anyone else here right now?”

Jeffrey shook his head. “The rest are out on jobs. I stayed behind to try and keep the old place from falling apart on us while we slept. I take it that Hank managed to sweet talk you well enough to convince you to give us a hand?”

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” Connor’s expression began to sour. “It doesn’t feel good, Jeffrey. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

“We always do,” Jeffrey sighed, clapping Connor on the shoulder. The stable doors clattered and they both turned to watch Hank emerge, a few bags slung over his shoulder along with his swords. “Ah, there you are. How’s Sumo?”

“As affectionate as ever,” Hank returned, glancing from Jeffrey to Connor. “I take it you two know what you’re doing? Y’know. To fix things.”

Connor crossed his arms. “It’s going to take a bit more than me poking around in the dirt to figure out how to fix whatever’s going on.”

“And you’ve been on the road for awhile,” Jeffrey added, letting his hand slip off of Connor’s shoulder. “Go get settled in and rest up. We can figure out a plan of action once you’re up to it.”

“Not as long as you’d think,” Hank said ruefully, glaring a little at Connor. “The portal definitely sped things up. I still feel like I’m about to puke.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Oh, you big baby. Are my things still where I left them last time, Jeffrey? It would be nice to change, take a little nap.”

Jeffrey crossed his arms and nodded. “Wouldn’t dream of changing a thing. Help him get settled, Hank. I’ll be around. Come find me when you’re ready to start.”

They watched the old witcher head off around the keep, ostensibly to check the perimeter and test out a few more weak spots in the enchantments surrounding the place. Connor glanced up at Hank and found the man already looking at him. “After you?” he offered, gesturing gallantly towards the keep’s entrance. “I’m pretty sure you still know your way around.”

“Such a gentleman.” But still right. Connor headed for the door, leaving Hank to carry in their shared baggage. He’d been here enough times to know his way around better than most, and like most things the witchers did, not much had been altered in the time he’d been away. The place was still dreary and dark, all dirt-floor and smoke-stained stone walls. Weapons were scattered all about, collected in corners like puerile decorations chosen by young boys who thought war was something cool and exciting. 

“The rest are all off on jobs?” Connor recalled, making his way towards the staircase. He nearly put his hand on the railing but remembered what had happened last time. These witchers— would it kill them to run a cloth down things every so often? 

Hank grunted, following him up the stairs. “Last I heard, yeah. We’ve got the place to ourselves but for Jeffrey.”

“Good.” Connor reached the tower landing and moved easily towards the uppermost room he’d called his own. “Bad ideas run rampant when there are too many of you in one place.” 

Behind him, Hank grumbled something under his breath in his defense. Connor didn’t really pay it any mind. He looked around his usual room in the Kaer Morhen keep and let out a quiet sigh. Jeffrey had been right; absolutely nothing had been changed since he was here last, including all the dust that had accumulated on the furniture. Connor let out a sigh and ran his finger through some of it, creating a clean stripe along the surface of a dresser. “What is it about witchers that makes them so content to revel in their own filth?”

“It’s just a bit of dust, Connor,” Hank sighed. He set down Connor’s bags on the floor, stretching once his arms were free. “I’m sure you’ve had worse.”

“Not if I can help it, I don’t.” Connor wiped his hand off on his trousers and turned to watch Hank twist and stretch, arms held over his head until a sliver of his stomach peeked out from beneath his shirt. “Some of us appreciate the finer things in life. A warm bath, a clean bed.” Hank let out a low, satisfied groan that did something sinister to the blood in Connor’s veins. “Good company.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint on all accounts.” The witcher rested his hands on his hips and gave Connor an inquisitive frown. His brows furrowed as Connor took a step towards him. “Have you got everything you need? I can let you get some rest for a bit if you’re… tired… Con?”

Connor stood right in front of Hank, nearly touching. “A nap sounds lovely.” Trouble was, he wasn’t all that tired. “Why don’t you help me unwind? Join me for awhile,” Connor whispered, rising up on his toes to loop his arms around Hank’s neck. “Pleasure first, business after.”

“I like the sound of that,” Hank chuckled, drawing Connor in with his strong arms around his waist. “Doubt Jeffrey will though.”

“I’ll make it up to him later.” It wouldn’t be hard; the old witcher had always had a soft spot for him. Connor pressed kisses to Hank’s cheek, down his jaw, his neck. He slowly met the man’s gaze. He smiled. “Take me to bed, Hank. Okay?”

“Okay,” the witcher murmured. He moved his hands lower, hooking them beneath Connor’s thighs. In a move as smooth as it was practiced, he lifted Connor into his arms and carried him to the bed. Connor pressed their foreheads together, staring into Hank’s golden eyes. “You’re bossy. Did I ever tell you that?”

Connor hummed. “Last I heard, you liked it.” He smiled as his back met the mattress, Hank coming down with him to pin him down. Connor ran his fingers through Hank’s shaggy mane of hair. “Just like old times, hmm?”

“Yeah.” The scrape of Hank’s beard against Connor’s neck sent a shiver down his spine. “Just like old times.” 

And just like countless times before, Connor felt his stress melt away beneath Hank’s warm weight, his careful ministrations. Hank’s mouth was wet, skilled, licking and nipping a line down his throat until the collar of his shirt got in the way. From there Hank pulled back, running his fingers down the line of buttons and fasteners until they parted, baring more skin. 

“You’re so beautiful, Con,” Hank rasped, eyes locked on his chest.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, Hank,” Connor returned, reaching between them to yank at the laces holding Hank’s trousers shut. “Get these off.” 

Hank answered him with a low laugh, one that vibrated through his chest and reminded Connor once more of just how big Hank was, how intimidating and strong. He pulled away just enough to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, unfastening his armor and throwing it and his boots onto the floor. Connor echoed his movements, kicking off his dirty shoes, unlacing his corset with a snap of the fingers. Connor fell back against the sheets once his shirt was hanging off his shoulders. “Hank, hurry up.” 

“Bossy, bossy.” Hank kicked off his trousers and rolled back on top of Connor, the skin to skin contact delightful but still not nearly enough. Big, calloused hands cupped Connor’s cheeks. “You’re lucky I like it.” 

“Shut up and kiss me, Hank,” he breathed, hitching a thigh over Hank’s hip. He dragged him down, hard, drawing Hank’s thick cock against his groin. It didn’t matter that their undergarments were still on — it didn’t dilute the sensation in the slightest. Connor threw back his head and moaned, moaned loudly until Hank smothered the sound with a deep, penetrating kiss. A hand snaked between them, pulling Hank free from his remaining clothing. Connor bucked and rocked. He wanted that. He wanted it inside him  _ now.  _

An odd sort of nudge pressed down on Connor from behind his eyes. He squirmed and panted, breaking the kiss to pant, “Do you feel that?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I feel it.” Hank moaned, his hard cock leaving a wet smear along Connor’s flat stomach. His mouth followed the line of his neck down to his bare chest, sucking on a nipple. The pressure grew worse, insistent. This wasn’t from passion or stimulation, was it? “Fuck, you feel so goo—” 

Connor choked as his vision became speckled with white haze. “Hank! Wait.” Connor smacked at Hank’s shoulders until he stopped his assault on his chest. “Just… hold on. There’s something—” His spine arched and he covered his eyes with his hands. 

“Shit. You’re serious. What is it?” Worry colored Hank’s voice. His hand left a hip to cup Connor’s cheek. “Con?”

Connor covered Hank’s hand with his own and removed it from his cheek. This feeling… It’d been a long time since he’d felt it, this desperate call for his attention. “It’s… I think it’s Nines,” Connor gasped, closing his eyes to probe the weak connection. Only one person could reach him like this, free from external spells or components to bolster the communication. Only… something was interfering with their bond. Distance, maybe, but that had never really been a problem before. 

“Your brother?” Hank rolled onto his side, dragging his hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. “What does he need at a time like this?”

Connor’s frown deepened. That was the problem. He didn’t know. Couldn’t with whatever it was keeping the message from coming through clearly. “Fuck,” he hissed, tearing back the blankets to get out of bed. It had to be bad. Nines never contacted him this way if he could help it. “I need… something to channel it.”

“Like what?” Hank asked. 

Connor darted to his bag and pulled out a small mirror from one of the side pockets. “Like this.” Connor bit down on his thumb and smeared some blood over the glass. To think, he was going to these lengths just to get through the distortion. The connection was weak, and that couldn’t mean anything good. He whispered some words of power and pressed the tips of his fingers to the glass. “Nines?” he called out, doing his utmost to keep the panic out of his voice. “What’s wrong?”

Crackles like static filled Connor’s ears. The words that did come through were broken, incomplete. 

“Connor?”

“Shut up,” Connor snapped, his concentration already drawn too thin.  _ Con… wer… encha...t...hel… hel...hel...HELP...HELP...GAV… _ “He keeps saying help… Gav? Gavin?” He twisted around and pinned Hank with a sharp look. “Where did you say Gavin was?”

Hank balked. “What?”

Connor stomped over to the bed. “In the inn!” he pushed, one eye on the compact mirror and the other on Hank. “You said Gavin wouldn’t be here this season. Where is he?”

“He said he was taking some job down south,” the witcher said, holding his hands up defensively. “Something about a cursed tower or an enchantment—”

Connor’s blood began to boil. “And since when does Gavin have the ability to break a curse on his own?” 

Hank paled. “I think… he said something about finding a witch to help him.”

Connor narrowed his eyes. Hank swallowed. They both knew Gavin didn’t know many witches. Just the one, in fact. Or would have been, if he hadn’t stolen Connor’s clothing and hijacked his scrying mirror and called… 

That colossal fucking  _ idiot.  _

The compact cracked in Connor’s hand. “Put your pants back on, Hank,” he hissed, staring into the ruined mirror with teeth bared. “We’re going to save my brother and kill Gavin.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so lifes a nightmare out there and i figured why not make it a nightmare here too? enjoy <3

Looking at the barren field that housed the supposed enchanted tower, Nines crossed his arms and failed to be impressed. 

“This is the enchantment tormenting the local peasantry?” he mused, lifting a brow at the witcher standing a conspicuous distance behind him. Overly cautious some might say, or just plain cowardly, Gavin had made it a point to remain firmly behind him ever since they entered the patch of land nearest to their target. “I barely feel a tingle. If there is something here, it’s weak, Gavin.  _ Considerably  _ weak.”

Gavin, who had been somewhat entranced with dodging the piles of cow shit scattered about the field, looked up and made a bewildered expression. A fond warmth passed over Nines at the sight of it. “What do you mean, weak?” He looked past Nines and stared at the decrepit ruin of a tower looming a quarter of a mile ahead of them. “I saw it myself the last time I came here. This thing trapped dozens of people, probably more.”

Nines shrugged magnanimously. “Weak is weak. Stupid is stupid. I can’t help it if idiots walk headfirst into weak spells and can’t find their way back out again, but this hardly feels worth my attention.”

“But you’re going to help anyway, right?”

Nines quirked a smile but turned his face away before Gavin could see it. He drummed a little beat against his bare arm and shrugged once more. “You’ve paid me handsomely already,” he sighed, making himself sound put upon. “I suppose I must, even if it is a waste of my abilities.”

He expected Gavin to groan and whinge; he didn’t expect the witcher to take a swat at his ass as he walked past him. Nines jumped and let out a quiet yelp, one that was unfortunately louder than Gavin’s husky laughter. “There’s my good witch,” he declared, pausing at an invisible boundary that marked the start of the enchantment. It spoke to his enhanced senses that he could feel the demarcation at all. 

Ignoring the possessive endearment for the moment, Nines followed him, pausing just a step behind. Something didn’t quite feel right about the area. Not egregiously out of place, but… odd given what he knew about the spell from Gavin’s past experiences. Nightmare snares were simple things, easily constructed but tricky to escape once stumbled upon. Nines had, when the occasion warranted it, always structured his own like a tunnel web spider; a wide mouth that narrowed into a tiny base, sticky and grooved to encourage a fly to wriggle itself deeper and deeper until escape was nothing but a pipedream. Of course, he’d only bothered to perform that kind of magic once or twice. They weren’t the kindest or most discerning of spells. There was always a risk of pulling in things you didn’t want to catch. Stray animals for one. In this case, the local peasantry. 

This, on the other hand, didn’t feel like a trap at all. Intent bled into magic no matter how skilled a practitioner was at hiding it. If you intended to trap quarry, an attuned individual would be able to feel your desire, your malice. It was that sort of characteristic that made magic so ill-suited to hunting game. Larger animals could usually sense something like that. Another witch, most definitely.

Nines wrinkled his nose and toed at the dirt beneath his boot. He didn’t feel anything coming off the tower beyond the dull, barely-there buzz of magic. He knew  _ something  _ was in front of him; what it was or the intentions of the one who placed it there, though, were distinctively missing from the equation.

“You know how to break it?” Gavin asked at his side. 

Nines nodded. At the end of the day it was a simple spell. Annoying, but simple. “Yes,” he said, already anticipating the struggle this was no doubt about to turn into. “But I’ll need to be inside it in order to do it properly.”

As if reading from a script, Gavin turned, frown in place, and issued a resounding, “Absolutely not.”

Raising a brow, Nines matched him with his own frown. “Need I remind you that you brought me here specifically to break this enchantment? How do you expect me to make good on that if I don’t go inside?”

“I don’t know, Nines,” Gavin said tersely, squaring himself up to his full height as if that alone spelled the end of the conversation. “All I know is that you’re not going inside it, so figure out another way to deal with it.”

“You don’t control me,” Nines said shrewdly. 

Gavin snorted around a leer. “Seemed to well enough last ni—”

Nines took a swift step closer and stared Gavin down, cutting him off with a hiss.  _ “Don’t  _ go there, Gavin,” he practically snarled, hands balled into fists at his side anything but harmless, “or I’ll make it so you can never use that cock again.”

If Gavin believed the threat, he didn’t let it show. He just rolled his eyes and pushed past Nines with the hard mass of his shoulder. “As if you wouldn’t whine about that just as loudly as I would. It’s dangerous, alright? Do whatever you have to do to bring it down,” he said, meeting Nines’s gaze. “All I’m saying is just do it from  _ out here. _ I can take care of whatever’s fueling this on the inside.”

“And what if what’s fueling it can only be destroyed with magic?” Nines prodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “A few  _ igni  _ spells won’t do you much good on this kind of enchantment.”

“Then I’ll figure it out,” Gavin said, clearly growing exasperated. 

“Oh, you will? You’ll ‘figure it out’ while trapped in some nightmarish illusion so convoluted that it spelled the doom of countless humans before you?” Nines let out a mirthless laugh. “How could I have ever doubted your prowess, Sir Witcher? Such keen planning will definitely see you out alive.”

Gavin groaned then, tossing his hands into the air as he spun on his heel and glared daggers at Nines. “Are you always like this? Fucking shit, Nines, if you want to come along, then  _ fine.”  _ He kicked at the dirt and swore a little more. “You try to be fucking chivalrous and this is the thanks you get,” he glowered at the ground, and Nines realized he probably hadn’t been meant to hear that part. There wasn’t time to remark on it; Gavin fixed him with a steely stare and ordered, “But I go in first. You stay behind me, and if something comes at us,  _ I  _ will be the one to handle it. Understand?”

“Fine,” Nines said crisply. The asshole might try to act chivalrous and protective, but all Nines felt was insulted. Who did he think he was? Some first-year mage too wet behind the ears to protect himself? If anything, that was Gavin walking into an unknown enchantment trap with no viable plan to break its hold on the land. “Lead the way, oh gracious leader. I’ll be sure to let you have first crack at the intangible shades when they come flying at our heads. Be sure to swing true. Those swords of yours will do  _ loads  _ of damage.”

Gavin muttered something under his breath that sounded a little too close to  _ fucking witches  _ for Nines’s comfort. “Just stick close to me,” he said a little louder, drawing his sword from the sheath on his back. He stomped closer to the boundary and waited for Nines to follow, his face cloudy with a bevy of emotions neither of them were going to dissect. That weird feeling from before was back with a vengeance. 

Nines swallowed it, stamped it down. This was no time to let emotions cloud his judgement. They had a job to do, and then they’d go their separate ways and everything would go back to normal. “Whatever,” he replied, just to say he did. Gavin’s toes were just brushing the boundary now, sending ripples of disturbed magic into motion, giving the open air the appearance of a heat haze despite the temperate weather. “You did this last time, right?”

Gavin nodded, completely focused on what lay ahead. “I only stuck my head through. It fought like a bitch to keep me, but I figured that if you have the majority of your body planted on the ground it can’t pull you in fully.”

“I suppose that might be comforting if we were intending to only stick our heads in,” Nines remarked dryly, reaching out for Gavin instinctively as the witcher lifted his boot to take a step forward. 

“Hold onto me, okay?” 

Nines didn’t need to be told twice. He gripped Gavin by the shoulder and followed him over the enchantment’s threshold. 

The magic washed over him in a sticky, cloudy smear that left his skin feeling clammy all over. Nines resisted the urge to close his eyes; for all that it felt like walking through a cobweb, he knew it wouldn’t actually irritate them. He kept them narrowed though, carefully analyzing the illusion as it began to coalesce into full focus. 

The change in scenery wasn’t quite as instantaneous as he first anticipated. If a person weren’t paying attention they were liable to believe they hadn’t changed locations at all. The field still stood around them, but the tower now sported an open door where it once displayed smooth stone and a crumbling facade. The forest in the distance looked overwhelmingly imposing, demonic in nature and as uninviting as could be. When Nines chanced a look over his shoulder, he saw no trace of the field they had just journeyed through, merely more haggard forest. 

They weren’t being encouraged to turn back or ignore the tower in front of them; clearly, they were met to enter it. The longer they stood still the wider the doorway seemed to grow, stretching towards them incrementally until all it took was one decisive step forward to transition them from knee-high thresh to cold, ancient stone. Nines let his hand fall away from Gavin’s shoulder. The door slammed shut behind them, and instinct brought his own magic surging towards his fingertips in case something else decided to rear its ugly head. 

Gavin, for all his experience dealing with situations like this, let out a curse, visibly unsettled. He turned from side to side, eyes narrowed as he struggled to see into the distant shadows lurking at the end of the wide entrance hall they’d found themselves within. “There’s no way that piddly little tower could be hiding all of this inside it,” he remarked, looking up at the vaulted ceiling. “Think we’re meant to climb to the top or something?”

“Something like that. Don’t go far from me, Gavin,” Nines said slowly, reaching out a hand to snag the fabric of the man’s shirt when it looked like Gavin wanted to test his newfound theory. “It’s going to build slowly as it feels us out, but once it’s started, it’ll do whatever it can to separate us.”

“Fucking hell,” Gavin muttered, taking a swift step backwards until they were pressed together, Gavin’s back to his chest. He held his sword in front of him, grip tight and perhaps a little unsettled. “Where do we go to break the enchantment? You just need to be inside, right? Do we have to go deeper?”

Gritting his teeth, Nines looked around, focusing his senses on the strange, discordant energy coming off the spell around him. This still didn’t feel right. It wasn’t malicious, wasn’t… anything at all like the kind of trap it was supposed to be. What intentions did the spellcaster have when making this? Were they trying to practice or something? Was this all just a test of their skills that got away from them?

“Hey, don’t space out on me here!”

Nines blinked. He shook his head. Right. Focus. “Sorry,” he said under his breath, tightening his grip in Gavin’s shirt. Things were taking effect now. He needed to focus. “We’re still on the outer edges of the spell. I could try to dismantle it from here but it probably wouldn’t do much.” At best it would just give the illusion something to grasp onto as he sought out the binding holding the whole thing together, increasing the targets on their backs. At worst, it would do nothing and still make their situation worse for it. Nines swallowed and ignored the shadows beginning to move just out of the corners of his eyes. “Spells like this always have a core, a sort of element that serves as the focal point. We’ll need to find that.” A shiver of unease rolled down his spine as the walls seemed to pulsate in time to his heartbeat. Gritting his teeth, Nines finished, “Let’s make it a quick trip.”

Gavin clearly wasn’t happy with the thought, but bereft of other options, deigned to take a tenuous step forward. Nines matched him for it, unwilling, despite all of his bravado before, to risk getting separated now. 

“Where do you think all of the trapped villagers are?” Gavin asked after a few tense moments of silence. 

“Not sure. Dead maybe.” There was a good chance they could have killed one another once the illusions fully set in, perhaps even killing themselves out of fear or misadventure trying to flee from foes they could never outrun. Nines carefully scanned the ground. “Their remains might be around us. We’re in an illusion, Gavin. Nothing we see can be trusted, so there’s no telling what is actually here.”

“That’s really comforting.”

Nines tried for a smile he didn’t really feel. “It’s not meant to be. Keep your wits about you. Let’s try to move up the tower.”

Gavin nodded, taking a careful step forward. There was a slight incline to the stone beneath their feet, one that acted as a guide that coaxed them towards a set of stone steps located at the end of the far hall. It only took a moment to realize how much larger the space was compared to how it had appeared on the outside. For every step they took, the place seemed to grow by ten more. It would be easy for anyone caught here without any magical background to lose sense of their surroundings. Spells like this often preyed on negative emotions. The more unsettled you became, the easier it would be for the magic to accomplish its task. 

“Is it getting darker in here to you?”

Nines looked around. It was, but if Gavin was beginning to grow uneasy, agreeing wouldn’t help things one bit. “No,” he said evenly, pressing the flat of his hand to Gavin’s back in a show of solidarity. “It’s just your imagination. Stay focused.”

“I’m focused,” Gavin bit back, head bobbing from side to side. “I feel like I keep seeing things.”

“You’re going to,” Nines lectured, his own eyes tracking strange disturbances in the shadows as they passed them by. “That’s what this kind of spell does. It’s going to play tricks on you and make you think that things are worse than they are. You need to focus on what’s real.”

“That’s easier said than fucking done. You want to try leading for a bit?” he asked defensively.

“If it would make you feel better—”

“That was a fucking joke, don’t you fucking dare get in front of me,” Gavin snapped, holding his sword aloft with one hand while the other pressed against Nines and forced him directly behind his back. He swore loudly as what little light they had flickered into smoky nothingness. “Fucking shit, it’s getting worse. How much further do we have to go?”

Seeing as they weren’t even on the stairs yet, Nines had to think they weren’t even close to their intended destination. “Just keep moving,” he said. Gavin let out a sigh and began to walk, his pace quick and clipped from his growing unease. Nines resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He took a step forward, rushing a little to keep up, and his boot caught on something, tripping him. His hand on Gavin’s back slipped. “Shit,” he swore just as the lights fizzled out completely. Blackness descended, thicker than pitch, and Nines cast out his hand to snatch Gavin’s shirt like he’d done before...

But his hand caught on nothing. 

Gavin had disappeared completely.

Nines swore loud enough to echo. “Gavin!” he shouted, summoning a ball of fire to his hand to light the way. He twisted around and looked in every direction he could. Gavin couldn’t have gotten far, and this place wasn’t that big. Not really. Logically speaking, he couldn’t have moved more than a few feet from him, even if his eyes said otherwise. “Get back here!”

The light helped but not enough. The shadows only seemed to darken in response. Strange echoes rose up in answer, but none of them sounded like Gavin’s voice. Nines bit back the urge to stomp his feet. He’d  _ told  _ him to stay close! They were in a fucking illusion! There was no telling what was real or fake now, or if they’d be able to find one another now that they were separated. Nines grinded his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath. That fucking moron. As soon as they were free from this mess, he’d have more than the reward money coming to him, that was for sure.

“Gavin, I’m moving up the tower,” he called out, feeling for the steady incline beneath his boots. They were going to the same place, so with any luck they’d just meet up there. “Head towards the top!”

The shadows deepened. Despite the fire in his palm, Nines could barely see the ground under his feet. This wasn’t natural. The spell was growing more and more malign, sensing his dismay and propagating around his fears. His free hand reached out to find the wall. A few wayward swipes told him it had disappeared. Fuck. He took a few more steps and found reason to curse again. The ground was beginning to slope downwards, not up. 

Nines stopped moving. The tower had seen fit to conspire against him, so there was no point in trying to make progress when it patently wouldn’t let him. Closing his eyes, he focused his senses inward. What should he do? This was just a stupid spell. There had to be a way to get through it. 

Logic told him to think, but anxiety had a louder voice. Gavin was still somewhere in this darkness, lost and nowhere near as competent at evading dangerous magic. Nines opened his eyes and tried to see through the blackness threatening to swallow him up. The fire in his hand barely put a dent in it. He let the spell dissipate. Saving his strength was worth more than the meager light. 

“Gavin?” he whispered, tuning his ears to the sounds shifting just beyond his level of perception. “Are you here?”

A warm breeze tickled the back of his neck, a lover’s breath against his skin. Nines stiffened and turned on his heel, and for a moment, the darkness retreated, showing him a long, empty corridor. Behind him a wall had appeared, blocking off his previous path. Nines grimaced as he turned to face his only available way forward. 

Shadows licked the stone, churning with imperceptible flickers of black-on-black. The fine hairs on the back of Nines’s neck stood on end. He didn’t like this hallway. He didn’t like it at all.

“Is someone there?” he asked, curling his fingers into fists at his side. “Speak. I’m warning y—”

Something was wrong. Something was  _ wrong.  _ The feeling enshrouded Nines like a heavy, clammy blanket, weighing down on him with such intensity that his knees buckled beneath him. He reached out to brace himself on the wall only for his hand to meet nothing but air. He twisted his head in either direction, breath catching in the back of his throat. No. Where did it go? Where the hell did the walls go?

“Gavin?” he called out, his voice echoing back at him in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t. Nines spun on his heel, searching for the familiar sight of that broad back, those glinting swords. “Gavin?!” he shouted louder, the panic mounting when the man failed to show himself. This wasn’t  _ right.  _ It was just some lowranked, juvenile enchantment. It shouldn’t be possible to affect them this much. 

“Nines?” 

Nines moved in the direction of the far-off response. Gavin sounded so far away, but how? It had only been a few seconds— “Gavin, where are you?” he called out, his mind running through his list of spells in search of a solution to the mounting situation. “Can you follow the sound of my voice?”

Instead of Gavin, a blood-curdling scream answered him. Nines whipped around and felt his blood run cold at the sight of a mangled creature stumbling out of the mist towards him. It held the shape of a man but none of the sapiency, its eyes rolling in its grisled skull and its tongue lolling out of its distended mouth. 

Fear hit Nines first, then instinct as it urged him to throw every ounce of magic his body commanded at the creature until it stopped moving towards him. It was only thanks to his self-awareness that he resisted both urges. It couldn’t be real, could it?

Behind the creature came another cry of fear. Nines stiffened as a new body shambled out of the darkness, creeping closer with the same broken, unnatural gait. Then another. And another. Nines took a step back. Shit. Even if they weren’t real… But if they  _ were…  _ Who was to say that the witch responsible for this trap hadn’t filled it with walking corpses? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, was it? 

He couldn’t trust his eyes. He couldn’t trust anything. A wayward projectile could rebound and strike him from behind if he wasn’t careful, and there was no way to tell if the demons howling at him from the shadows were real or fake or worse without putting himself or them in danger. A sickened part of him worried that they could even be glamored villagers trapped inside with him, the illusions given weight with the corporeal bodies beneath them clawing at the monsters they perceived from their side of the spell. Gavin could be any of the abominations before him. He could be none of them. Nines didn’t have the stomach to try his luck and test which theory held the most weight. 

But that left him with few options. He couldn’t just let these things attack him, not when an injury might leave him vulnerable to whatever malign intentions went into the creation of this hellish ensemble. Nines raised his hands and blasted the ground, cutting off his attackers and stunning them in place. “Gavin!” he shouted, his voice echoing back on him oddly as if he were trapped in a bottle. The walls were so far from him; which was the illusion, the sound or his sight? 

The question tickled in the back of his mind. Right. Right! Confusing all of the senses was difficult for even the most skilled of witches. Most settled for one or the other, a few rather than all. The practitioner was most likely nowhere near them. Any energy being channeled into feeding this creation was latent, limited. The world had shifted visually as soon as they entered the spell’s perimeter. Clearly sight wasn’t to be trusted, but what about his other senses?

There was hardly time to test the new theory. The first ghoul was nearly on him. Nines bared his teeth and dodged its first swipe, the sound of its arm slicing through the air like a blade. He kicked out his leg and struck the thing in the gut, a spray of thick, black bile spilling from its lips as it crumpled backwards. “Gavin!” Nines shouted, looking away, seeking out the witcher. He should be able to sense the man, right? The amount of magic on him, imbued in his blood and body… If he could just get a moment to  _ focus,  _ it would all be clear—

The ghoul was back on its feet, latching onto Nines’s arm with more strength than its spindly body would lead a person to believe was possible. Nines let out a cry and beat at its head and shoulders with his fist. It felt so real, the impact ringing its way through his bones. Another ghoul screamed, signalling its own attack. Nines’s knees buckled beneath the weight as it leapt onto his back. He let out a scream of his own when something sharp sank into his shoulder. 

“Get off!” he shouted, but the mindless creatures refused to heed his words. He shook and struggled, but the teeth in his shoulder just bit down harder. Pain and fear cracked through his forced calm. Nines closed his eyes and spat out a curse. He sliced his hands through the air and let his intent form blades sharp enough to cut through bones. 

The first ghoul latched around his arm crumbled into dust upon impact. The one behind him stayed disturbingly visceral. It shrieked and loosened its hold, the teeth in his shoulder ripping away like a razor torn free from a sheathe. It hit the ground with a meaty, wet thunk. Nines stumbled away, clutching at his wound. 

Words from an old tome rolled past his eyes in a haze. Bestiary notes, medical guides. Ghouls were poisonous to the living, their bite carrying filth and pestilence. He’d need to treat it. The flesh would go necrotic if he didn’t, rot away like the creature that dealt the blow. He’d seen it before, the blackened flesh, the overwhelmingly sweetish rot of putrefying flesh… His stomach threatened to turn at the thought. He inhaled sharply, bile sour on the back of his tongue— 

But then he noticed something. Something small, perhaps, in any other context but… but so conspicious now that he was thinking about it. How had he missed it? How had he missed that there was no reek of rot in the air, no fetid stink of something dead, dying, or somewhere caught in between? The creature let out a weak gurgle and writhed vaguely on the floor. The sound was somehow… redolent of something else. Deeper. Rasped. 

Familiar. The sound of its groans, its grunts. It was… Nines eyes widened. 

Maybe…. Maybe sound wasn’t the deciding factor. 

Maybe scent was. 

Oh, fuck. Oh,  _ fuck.  _ “G...Gavin?” Nines whispered, stumbling forward, falling to his knees. The gash in his shoulder wasn’t curved or ragged, but clean as if done with a knife. He reached for the body and even as he blinked, the features on the monster shifted, fading into something much more familiar. Blood bubbled from familiar lips, dripped from a wide gash in a familiar chest. Nines’s hands shook as he touched Gavin’s cheek. He’d gone pale. Much too pale. 

“This is an illusion,” he said aloud, even as his gut turned to stone. “This isn’t real.”

Grey eyes shifted, meeting him halfway. “Don’t hurt my feelings,” Gavin said, voice haggard, a little breathless. “You know me better than that.”

Nines shook his head, denying it. It couldn’t be. This place fed on nightmares. It  _ knew  _ what to show a person to break them, to make them give up hope. “This isn’t real,” he insisted, but his hands still went to the gash on Gavin’s chest, pressing down furiously to staunch the bleeding that wouldn’t seem to stop. “You’re not real. You’re just trying to break my spirit.”

“It’d take a lot more than this to do that,” came the weak reply. Gavin’s eyes fluttered, and Nines pressed down furiously.

“Don’t you dare close your eyes!” he snapped, and Gavin groaned as he opened them. 

“No witcher dies in his bed,” Gavin grinned, lips bloody. “Don’t throw such a fit. It’s not like you gave a shit about me either way.”

“Don’t say that,” Nines croaked, searching the mounting fog for help, a way out,  _ anything.  _ “Don’t you fucking say that. You aren’t dying here. This isn’t fucking real. I’ll… I’ll get us out. I’ll—”

A hand covered Nines’s, pulling his attention back to the witcher. Gavin said nothing. Nines wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not. 

Probably not, his mind offered up feverishly. Gavin would never willingly shut his mouth. 

Fuck. The illusion grew thicker, the fog actively beginning to choke. Nines grabbed Gavin and heaved him into his arms, curling over him protectively. He was out of options, well and truly. He closed his eyes and began to chant, praying that the interference from the enchantment wouldn’t stifle his cry from being heard. 

_ Connor,  _ Nines screamed, dragging the sound from deep within his being.  _ Help, Connor, help. Gavin’s hurt. HELP.  _ He had no idea where his brother even was, if he could get here, if he’d be enough to break them free.  _ The tower, it’s too strong,  _ he rushed, channeling as much magic into Gavin’s wound as he could manage. Healing wasn’t his strong suit. He couldn’t even see what he was doing. 

But there was nothing else he could do. 

Nines closed his eyes to the nightmare around him. He just prayed that Connor heard before it became permanent.


	9. Chapter 9

The one good thing about the frantic nature of their portal jaunt was that it didn’t give Hank a spare moment to complain. Connor wasn’t sure if he could handle it on top of the constant feedback through the link, Nines’s voice growing desperate and pained, fear-drenched and sickeningly worrisome by the second. 

The situation came in bits and pieces, fading and coalescing as the distance between them lessened the interference breaking up Nines’s voice. It was a simple enough story to understand, though Connor couldn’t imagine what had possessed Nines to put himself in the middle of it. Working with Gavin?  _ Gavin,  _ of all people? A cursed tower, illusions, some sort of spell that was far more malicious than it should have been— Connor didn’t look behind him to make sure that Hank was even following him; he just threw himself through the portal without a single look back, desperate to get to Nines before the story decided on an unhappy ever after. 

Based on the portal and Nines’s fervent help, they came to a stop in some field in the middle of nowhere. Hank bent over and promptly spilled his breakfast into the dirt, two portal jaunts in such a short time frame proving too much for him to handle. Connor barely spared him a second glance as he quickly caught sight of the tower in question and sprinted towards it. 

_ Nines!  _ He called through their connection, noting with some horror that Nines’s voice was clearer now, but somehow weaker.  _ I’m here, I’m here, I’m going to get you, so just hold on! _

All that answered him was a steady stream of  _ Gavingavingavingavingavin.  _

What the fuck was going on in there? Connor gave up trying to scream at Nines, instead turning his focus to feeling out the magic permeating the area. It was strong; he could feel it even from a few hundred yards away. The tower was large but weather-beaten, entirely unthreatening in appearance. Connor circled the perimeter as quickly as he could, dragging his feet through the dirt to mark the boundary line between where the enchantment began and where they were still safe to traverse. He noted with some measure of ire that Nines clearly hadn’t done the same. There were no markings anywhere but the front.

A rookie mistake. The perimeter showed that the spell wasn’t perfectly circular or even. Random offshoots of magic bubbled the boundary outward, pockmarking and stippling the circumference in a display of erratic yet strong magic. Whoever had thrown this spell together had done their damnedest to make it strong, but that didn’t mean it was stable. The information didn’t do them much good at the moment, but it could come in handy later when Connor hunted down the one responsible and tore their intestines from their belly. 

The sound of heavy footfalls broke him from his darkening thoughts. “What’s the plan?” Hank asked, voice rubbed raw from his earlier stomach voiding. Connor glanced at him and saw he was pale and clammy but ultimately prepared for whatever needed to be done. A momentary burst of relief soothed the flames in Connor’s veins. He was desperately grateful that he had Hank here with him, that he wasn’t going through this alone. He and the old witcher had their share of problems, but when it mattered, where it counted most, Hank was the most reliable man he knew. 

“We’re going to get him out,” Connor stated, the goal simplistic in design but proving difficult in execution. 

“What’s stopping us from going in and doing that?”

The routine act of stating off their situation further focused Connor to the task at hand. He rattled it off one by one, “There is a large, unstable enchantment running the perimeter of the tower. From what Nines was able to get through to me, it’s some kind of corrupted form of a fear trap.”

“Fear trap?”

Connor nodded. “A simple enough spell that let’s a witch create a trap around an area. Anyone who crosses into it will become trapped in an illusion and be unable to leave or break it. Usually the illusions are focused on incapacitating the victim until the witch can arrive and deal with them. Nightmares are typical.”

Hank swore under his breath. “And this is some corrupted version of that? Where’s the witch responsible? Why haven’t they been notified if it’s already been tripped?”

“I don’t know, Hank.” Connor’s tone was terse and sharp. He rested his hands on his hips and glared at the tower, heart hammering in his chest as he processed it all. “It’s been here for awhile, but it’s not ancient magic. If Nines came here with Gavin and Gavin was on a job, then that probably tells us that it’s been tripped multiple times by the peasantry in the area. No one has come to deal with it, and I’m not going to pretend to understand the motives of an idiot who decided it was a good idea to place a corrupted, unstable enchantment in a place like this.”

Hank was silent as he stared at him. Connor’s brow twitched. He looked at the witcher pointedly. “What?”

“We’ll get them out, Connor,” Hank said carefully. “You need to calm down a little.”

“I’m deathly calm, Hank,” Connor retorted, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. In the back of his mind he could hear Nines’s frantic, labored breaths. He sounded so scared. And still, the only words on his lips seemed to be Gavin Reed’s fucking name. Blood began to trickle through his clenched fingers. “I don’t know why you’d assume I’m not.”

Hank held his hands up in surrender. He turned his gaze to the tower. “I don’t know the details of the job Gavin got. We’re doing this with little to no information. You’re the expert here, Connor,” he said, turning his eyes to the witch, something almost hesitant lurking behind them. “What do we do?”

Indecision froze the retort on Connor’s lips. That was the question, wasn’t it? What do they do? What  _ could  _ they do? Their options were more than just limited, they were strangled. 

A sharp note of panic stung Connor’s throat on his next inhale. Helplessly, he tried to reach out to Nines.

_ Can you hear me?  _

_ Nines? _

_ Nines, I need you to tell me what to do. What can I do to get to you? _

After a loaded minute of nothing but panicked, high-pitched breaths, all that came through from Nines was a single phrase:  _ Help Gavin.  _

The anger washed away the panic like a cleansing wave. Why? Why was that all that Nines could say in a time like this? Connor bared his teeth and snarled at the tower mocking him from on high. He couldn’t stand still; he began to pace, mind turning over the problem with an almost hostile energy. 

“I’m going to kill that man,” Connor spat as he calculated the dimensions of the spell, extrapolated how high it might extend, where the onus of its focus might be located and their potential for reaching it without falling into the enchantment too. “I’m going to. That fucker. He did this. I’ll kill him.”

There was no way to remove the enchantment without going inside. It wasn’t an option; if it had been strong enough and insidious enough to trap Nines, Connor had no illusions that he might fare better, especially with less knowledge on what he was facing going in. His mind raced as he paced the boundary. Nines’s cries—for all that they were clearer—were beginning to become more and more sporadic. 

“Is now really the time for that? We have to do something, Con,” Hank said, grimly assessing the boundary line. “If we can’t break it from out here, we might have to just go in and hope for the best. I had more mutagens than Gavin. It might affect me slower if I—”

“No,” Connor hissed, spinning on his heel to glare at Hank. “You aren’t going in there like that. It won’t matter. Clearly this spell was cast by someone more powerful than we could have anticipated. We can’t trust things we don’t understand.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Hank demanded. 

That was the big question, wasn’t it? Connor’s mind raced as he cycled through their prospective options. There weren’t many, and none were free from risk. He toed the line of the boundary and pressed his fingers to the ground, reading the thrum of responding magic as he sent pulses of his own into the soil. Magic had rules. There could be order or chaos depending on how one applied it. He couldn’t tear through it, go under it, or redirect it. 

The only option left was to do it from the inside. 

“I have an idea,” he said, saying the words before the bad idea could talk him out of it. 

Hank latched onto the news like a dog with a bone. He leaned in, every ounce of training shown in the alert hold of his body, the tensing of his muscles. “Let’s hear it then.”

Connor braced his knees on the ground and worked while he spoke. “I’m going to inject my magic inside and create an enchantment bigger than the one around it. Like blowing a bubble inside a bubble. It’ll lift away the bad and press it against the boundary lines the original spell already drew itself.” With any luck it would create a hole of benign magic within big enough for Hank to run in, grab Nines, and get back out before the pressure of holding it in place grew too heavy. That, or the instability of the whole structure imploded from the inside out. “You need to run in once it’s in place and get Nines. I can put myself in your mind and guide you.”

Hank tried to hide the way he blanched. “Will that really work?”

“We don’t have time to doubt it, Hank,” Connor snapped, looking up at the witcher. It wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t safe or advisable or anything he’d ever tried doing before. But it was a plan, and they couldn’t afford to be picky at a time like this. Not with the stakes too high. “Do you trust me or not?”

Hank looked at the tower and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, dragging his hand down his face. Despite his clear trepidation, he looked resigned and ready. An ounce of warmth threatened to thaw some of the ice in Connor’s chest. “Yeah, I trust you. What do you need from me?”

Connor nodded towards the door of the tower. “Get ready to run in there. I’m setting the stage right now, but the second I’m ready I need you ready to run.”

“How long do we have?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know how long it will work. Minutes. Maybe less,” Connor warned, burying his hands in the dirt. He’d never tried doing something like this before, but the theoretics of it were sound. “Don’t think about it. Just go in, get my brother, and get out as fast as you can.” He would have to bear the collective weight of not only his own tower-sized enchantment, but that of the pre-existing one as well. He was a strong practitioner, but even he knew his limits were exactly that— limited. “Are you ready?”

Hank unfastened his swords and let them fall to the ground. He tore off his armor and let it fall too, freeing up his shoulders and shedding weight. “Just tell me when,” he said, leaning forward, readying himself at the boundary line. 

Connor closed his eyes and spoke the words of power, his magic rushing into the earth so fast that it threatened to make him dizzy. There was a sudden lurch beneath their feet, a grating sound as the disparate magics grinding against one another and fought for supremacy. Nines’s fading screams forced Connor to be stronger; he let out a cry and inserted his will with every ounce of strength he had. 

“Now!” he shouted, projecting himself inside of Hank’s mind while he still could. The witcher’s essence washed over him, his strong body at odds with the strain on Connor’s muscles. Hank’s boots pounded the ground as he raced towards the entrance of the tower. Hank’s thoughts were simple, direct, almost a balm as pressure assaulted Connor’s mind. Whoever had devised the original enchantment hadn’t wanted anyone to alter it. It was a vicious backlash, but bearable for the moment. 

“I’ll need you to tell me where to go,” Hank grunted, breaking down the door with his shoulder instead of taking the time to slow down and open it. It was a testament to his momentum and bulk that the splintered wood didn’t slow his pace at all. “Can you do that?”

Connor wanted to bristle at the lack of faith, but for the moment he couldn’t blame Hank for worrying. The task wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been, which Connor took as cold comfort while he still could. He wasn’t trying to build an illusion, merely dispel the current one, so there was no energy wasted on constructing a new interior to the tower itself. His magic coalesced around the boundary lines, inserting itself beneath the bulwark of the old spell to lift it, push it, shove it to the edges until the center cleared and showed reality lying beneath it. “He won’t be hard to find,” Connor told him, hands beginning to shake. “I’ve dispelled the illusions inside. You’ll see him.” 

Hank immediately began to look around. Through Hank’s eyes Connor was able to take in glimpses of the tower’s skeleton. It truly was all it had looked on the outside. There was no furniture or decor to speak of, the place more of an abandoned silo than anything liveable. The walls were covered in old soot-streaks, the floor with thresh and dead leaves that had been swept inside by years of rain, wind, and snow. It was all together nothing different from any of the abandoned ruins Connor had seen countless times before in his travels: Decrepit, depressing, moldering, and empty.

Well, mostly empty.

The one thing that made this place stand out was what rotted amongst the thresh and leaves. A few bodies lay strewn about the interior, some visibly decomposing, some a bit fresher. From their garb they looked to be peasants, farmers, villagers who must have wandered into the tower and lost all sense of what was real or fake. A few were bloodied and mangled while others simply looked emaciated. Connor felt Hank recoil at the smell. While he did, Connor kept looking, kept listening, letting his connection to Nines call out to him and lead him and—

“There!” Connor shouted, forcibly moving Hank when he didn’t turn in the right direction. Hank shuddered at the feeling but went where he was told, turning down a hall to a room containing only two figures. In the center of the room Nines laid on the floor, Gavin about twenty feet away. Both were curled into balls. Choked sobs and fevered mutterings fell from Nines’s lips in desperate waves. Gavin, though, stayed silent. In fact, he wasn’t moving at all. 

“Get him,” Connor shouted through the connection, shaking with the effort of maintaining the barrier. “Get Nines now!”

Hank didn’t need to be told twice. He moved quickly, sprinting into the room without a moment’s hesitation. To Connor’s horror, he bypassed Nines and went for Gavin first. 

“Hank!” Connor screamed. 

“Do you think I don’t know you, Connor?” Hank shouted back, grabbing his fellow witcher under the arms to lever him up. “You’ll drop the barrier the second Nines is out, and I can’t carry them both at the same time.” He heaved and slung Gavin over his shoulders. Under the strain of the man’s weight, he grunted, “I’m not letting you leave him here because of this, Con. Don’t you dare think I will.”

The structure began to shake from the force of Connor’s anger. Hank was already halfway to the exit, Nines still laying there, unresponsive. Sweat ran down Connor’s face and stung his eyes. He dug his hands into the dirt and let out a furious cry as he forced the barrier to remain in place. Through his mind’s eye he watched Hank emerge from the tower. He threw Gavin onto the ground and charged back in. Connor’s nose began to bleed. His vision grew black and hazy around the edges. 

“Hank,” he groaned, head splitting from the pain.  _ “Hurry!”  _

Nines didn’t go as easily over Hank’s shoulder. He fought back when touched, kicking out, swinging his hands and letting off stray bolts of magic that nearly put a hole through Hank’s head. The witcher swore loudly and struck Nines behind the head. Connor might have been angry about it if he’d had the sense to do anything but hold on. Nines went boneless and Hank struggled to get his bulk over his shoulder. He didn’t quite manage it in the end. He just dragged him, dragged them both, towards the exit. 

Connor had felt pain in his life, probably more pain than any one person should feel if they wanted to remain sane and sound through it all. The pain he felt now was… debilitating, the weight on his shoulders akin to supporting the entire world on his back and then some. He buckled and felt himself fall, his chest meeting the ground, his hands still stubbornly buried in the dirt. Flecks of soil stuck to his lips, coated his tongue.

“Hank,” he whimpered, unable to see them anymore.  _ Nines.  _ He might have blacked out; he couldn’t rightly tell. Connor lost sense of everything but the pressure crushing his skull. 

Something firm grabbed his wrists, ripping them from the ground. The pressure lessened as something shook him roughly. “-nnor? Connor?!” A voice filtered in and with it came the realization that he was bleeding from the nose and ears, hot blood trickling down his skin in thin rivulets. Hank’s face coalesced before him. “Connor, we did it! I got them out! Stop the enchantment, it’s done!”

Connor’s tongue felt as heavy as lead. He blinked slowly and looked where Hank was directing him. Nines stared back at him and sense came quicker then, a flood of adrenaline shooting through Connor’s chest until he was shoving Hank away and falling towards his brother. The magic he’d been channeling disappeared in an instant. The enchantment from before settled back into place with a sound like a thunderclap, shaking the tower and loosening a few bricks.

“It’s fine,” Hank repeated, sounding lost and a little gutted by the situation. “He’s okay, Connor. Take it easy.”

Limbs refusing to obey him, Connor crawled the last few inches separating them. He grabbed Nines and refused to let him go. His own pain didn’t matter. He swallowed it down, channeled it into frantic energy to keep them both upright. Nines was hurt. His little brother was  _ hurt.  _ He had to protect him, help him— Connor held his brother to his chest and ran his hands over his face, through his hair, repeating, “Nines, it’s me, it’s Connor. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” He couldn’t stop staring at the gash on Nines’s shoulder, at the wide, frightened look in his wide, unblinking eyes. Nines’s cheeks were pale and bloodless. His breath came too quickly. 

He was hyperventilating. 

“Nines!” Connor shouted, giving Nines a rough shake. His brother’s eyes flickered towards him, seeing but not quite  _ seeing.  _ Residual transference? More hallucinations? No, this kind of spell was territorial. He’d removed Nines from the tower so it should have broken with that. Connor looked behind him at Hank desperately. Hank had walked away, drifting back towards the boundary line. The why behind that was beyond him. “Hank, he’s not answering me!”

“I think they’re in shock,” Hank grunted, pausing beside a lump Connor realized was Gavin. He’d been dropped just outside of the boundary after that first jaunt inside, and Hank must have left him there, carrying Nines to him to snap him out of the magical deluge. Hank bent down and grabbed the other witcher beneath the arms, lugging Gavin through the grass like a piece of dead meat. Connor couldn’t help the instinctual snarl that rose from him at the sight. Hank ignored it though, dragging the man closer, laying him down beside Connor and Nines. He knelt down and fumbled for Gavin’s collar, snapping open his armor to give him room to breathe. Unlike Nines, Gavin looked unharmed. No blood. Nothing. “You may need to hit him. Snap him out of it.”

Connor turned back to his brother. He didn’t think too hard about it; he lifted his hand and slapped Nines across the cheek. A livid, pink handprint stood out against Nines’s white cheek. Blue eyes fluttered. Nines blinked and looked around blankly. He slowly met Connor’s worried gaze. 

“C...Connor?” 

His voice was weak, dry. Connor covered the handprint with his hand and brought Nines’s forehead to his own. “It’s fine,” he whispered, closing his eyes as he embraced his brother. “I’m here. You’re okay.” 

Nines lifted a shaky arm and wrapped it weakly around Connor, clutching at his sleeve. He shook badly. “Wh...Where’s… Gavin?” 

Connor stiffened. He opened his eyes and looked at Nines. “Did I hit you too hard?” he asked seriously, leaning back to run his fingers over Nines’s head, searching for a bump. Behind him came the sound of a sharp slap, then a groan. Hank muttered something colorful and Connor watched as Nines stopped looking at him to look at the witchers over his shoulder. 

The moment Nines’s eyes connected with Gavin, he began to struggle against Connor’s hold. He pushed himself backwards and Connor found himself unable to keep his grip; he let go and Nines tumbled free, dragging himself across the grass until he was at Gavin’s side. The witcher was conscious now, thanks to Hank’s ministrations. Nines hovered a hand over his figure, pale bottom lip caught between his teeth as if unsure of where to touch him. 

“Gavin?” he whispered, finally settling on the man’s shoulder. His other hand hovered over Gavin’s chest, trembling horribly as he checked for a wound that clearly wasn’t there. 

Hank, who was situated on Gavin’s other side, brought a hand beneath the man’s neck and helped him sit up. “Easy does it,” he murmured, letting Nines check Gavin over until he settled. “He’s fine, I think. Just a bit out of it.”

“Nines?” slurred a voice Connor loathed to hear. Gavin’s eyes were hazy as he looked at Nines. “You’re... okay?”

Before Nines could say anything, Connor found himself standing, the white-hot fury from before coaxed back to life in the span of that single exchange. “He is,” Connor bit, acid coating every word. “No thanks to you.”

Hank rose to his feet in an instant. He sidestepped the two injured men and tried to cut Connor off as he stomped his way over. “Hey, is now really the time for this? You’re bleeding, Connor.”

As if that fucking mattered. “It’s the perfect time,” Connor snapped, the magic already flickering along his fingers. He shouldered past Hank and frowned when Nines wrapped his arms around Gavin, shielding him from sight. Connor bared his teeth and snarled, “Let me fucking see him, Nines. I’m going to give him something real to be afraid of.”

“Con,” Hank murmured, slowly coming up behind him, hands outstretched placatingly. “Calm down.”

Connor whipped around and glared at the witcher. “Don’t tell me to calm down, Hank,” he hissed, fire licking his taut knuckles. “That fucker nearly got my brother killed with his recklessness!”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Nines croaked, face buried in the crook of Gavin’s neck. Connor’s anger stuttered in place for a moment; he couldn’t remember the last time he heard his brother sound so close to tears. “Leave him alone. It wasn’t his fault.”

That just pissed him off more. “What kinds of bullshit has he been feeding you?” Connor demanded, practically shouting now. “He drags you into some fucked up cursed building and nearly gets you killed, and you say it’s not his fault?” 

“Connor!” Hank snapped, grabbing him by the wrist. Connor blinked, looking over at the older witcher. When had he raised his hand? “Now isn’t the time,” he said firmly, looking away from Connor to take in the two curled up in the grass. Gavin was holding Nines back just as tightly as Nines held him, shoulders shaking slightly. “We need to get them back to Jeffrey. Something awful happened in that tower and we need to regroup before we start pointing fingers at each other.”

“I want answers, Hank,” Connor hissed. 

Hank’s hand tightened around his wrist. “You’ll get them. But not right now.” He let go and walked past Connor, crouching down beside Nines. He was gentle as he rested his palm on the witch’s shoulder. “Think you can walk? We need to get the two of you back to Kaer Morhen.”

Nines didn’t lift his head. He squeezed Gavin tighter. “He’s hurt,” he said softly. “I hurt him.”

“You didn’t hurt him,” Hank countered smoothly, letting out a sigh as he gently hooked his hands under Nines’s arms and began to lift him off the ground. “He’s fine. You just think you did, but he’s fine. Come on, use your legs. I can’t carry the both of you, no matter how much you may want me to.”

Connor took a step forward. “I can help—”

“He’s got it, Connor,” Hank cut in, stepping back as Nines got the message and stood under his own power. “Have you got Gavin? I can still sling him over my shoulder if you can’t hold him up.”

Nines detached himself from Gavin’s embrace and nodded, shifting them into something a little better for walking. His skin was still so pale, his movements so shaky. It took everything in Connor not to rush forward and throw Gavin to the side, to insert himself under his brother’s arm and support him on his own. A heavy look from Hank stopped him from trying. It curdled something sour in the pit of his stomach though. They would be having words about this once they were alone. Gavin may have been Hank’s brother in arms, but Nines was Connor’s by blood. 

“Can you make us another portal back?” Hank asked, pulling Connor out of his rapidly darkening thoughts. He had grabbed his swords and discarded armor while Connor was lost in thought and was shoving them on as quickly as he could as if he expected a fight to break out in the next few minutes. 

Maybe he did, Connor thought darkly. And maybe he was right to anticipate it.

“Fine,” he answered, clipped and tight. Hank sighed and approached him, the lines in his face deepening as he succumbed to a weariness Connor couldn’t feel with his blood so hot. “But I’m not doing this for  _ him,”  _ he clarified, glaring at the man stumbling against his brother’s side. Gavin was getting more and more coherent by the minute; it wouldn’t be long until he was back to his obnoxious self, ready to answer for all he’d done today. No one would be able to stop him then. Not Hank, not Jeffrey, and certainly not Nines. “And don’t think you’re off the block either. We’re going to talk about that stunt you pulled in there, Hank. I’m not happy with you right now.”

Hank’s hand on his lower back was a poor attempt to distract Connor from the way Gavin now had his arm wrapped around Nines’s waist. “Whatever. Just get us home.” Connor ground his molars together and failed to ignore the furtive whispers the two of them shared. He threw his hand out in front of him and tore open a portal back to Kaer Morhen with more gusto than was necessary. He hoped Gavin fell out halfway there. 

If Nines wouldn’t be capable of sensing it, he might have been tempted to facilitate it himself. 

“It’s alright, Con. Try to relax,” Hank told him, squeezing his hip as he brushed his lips against his temple. “He’s fine.”

“He’s lucky,” Connor corrected as he leaned away from the affection, voice full of venom as he stabilized the portal and gestured for Nines to go through first. His eyes tracked Gavin’s limping progress. Nines had him bundled under his arm like an invalid, tucked up to his side and his arm slung far too low around Nines’s waist. “If I hadn’t heard him—”

“But you did.” Hank guided him forward, but the manner was too similar to what he’d just seen to be stomached so easily. Connor shrugged off Hank’s touch. He glared at the man until he sighed. “We’ll talk about it once we’re home,” the witcher decided, pulling a face as he took his first step through the portal. “Just… don’t try to skin Gavin until we figure out what happened. It’s not going to help things if you kill him before we get answers out of him.” 

Connor said nothing, and Hank didn’t try to push for more. He disappeared into the spiral of magic and left Connor alone in the field, the light breeze and green grass mocking him as he fumed. Flecks of red stood out amongst that green. Blood. His brother’s. 

Connor took one last lingering look over his shoulder as he walked into the portal. At the blue sky, the patchwork clouds, and the crumbling tower hiding more secrets than answers in its cursed recesses. Whoever did this had another thing coming, Connor thought as he watched the tower recede into the distance. They wouldn’t live to mourn their poor choices. 

He wouldn’t give them that chance. 


	10. Chapter 10

Nines thought he would stop shaking once they touched down in Kaer Morhen, leagues away from that tower and the nightmare housed inside. But he didn’t. He kept shaking when the portal faded away, kept shaking when the imperious sight of the looming keep overtook them. Every time he closed his eyes he found himself trapped once again. He couldn’t hold Gavin tight enough, couldn’t press himself as close as he needed and— 

And it hurt, he realized. Feeling this weak  _ hurt.  _

What happened in that tower was… so far beyond anything he had experienced before. And he’d undergone pain before. He’d been  _ afraid  _ before. But those… hallucinations. They’d been too real. Realer than anything a simple practitioner should have been able to summon up. Even holding Gavin against himself couldn’t erase the memory of hurting him. It wasn’t real— but it sure as shit felt it. 

Behind him, Connor was ranting loudly. The words blended together, but the tone was crystal clear. He was furious, had been furious from the moment they reconnected. Nines listed his way through the shadowy doorway of the keep and let out a low sigh. The worst of the nightmare might have been over, but the real challenge was only just beginning. 

Connor would try to kill Gavin the first chance he got. Nines could barely keep himself upright, but someone had to be the one to stop him. 

“You’re ba— What the hell happened to you?!” a voice shouted someone just ahead. Nines lifted his chin and found a witcher fumbling his way out of his chair by the fire. He was an older man, his age showing in his eyes despite his well-preserved features. He knew who this was, didn’t he? Jeremy or… Jeffrey. Yes. Jeffrey. One of the last witchers from the old stories. This could be an interesting first meeting if it were made under different circumstances.

Hank closed the door behind them and gave a half-hearted, “Yeah, Jeff, we’re back.”

“Where the hell did you go? You were here one minute and gone the next, and…” The old witcher trailed off as he looked over Gavin still weakly tucked under Nines’s arm. His soft brown eyes met Nines’s. “What happened to you?”

“The tower,” Gavin groaned, forcing himself to stand a little more on his own. “Fucking piece of shit.”

Something grabbed Nines from behind, tearing him away from Gavin entirely. The witcher staggered and nearly fell, and Nines struggled even as Connor dug his nails into him to hold him in place. “You’re the piece of shit!” he shouted, dragging Nines behind him no matter how hard he tried to hold his ground. 

He stopped fighting and grabbed his brother’s wrist. “Connor, stop,” he ordered. This wouldn’t solve anything. 

“Don’t tell me to stop, Nines,” his brother hissed, rounding on him with a spring in his step that belied how much magic he had expended getting them out and here with barely a breath drawn in between. He was shaking too, but not for the same reason Nines was. He jammed his finger in Gavin’s direction and Jeffrey’s eyes widened even as he caught Gavin to keep him from falling over. “He would have gotten you killed if I hadn’t gotten to you in time.”

“And you would have left him to die if I hadn’t gotten to him first,” the other witcher, Hank, interjected, hooking an arm around Connor’s waist and drawing him away physically. Nines’s brows rose towards his hairline at the move—did this man have a death wish?—but felt a smidgen of gratitude all the same. It forced Connor to let go of him, and that freed him to inch his way back towards Gavin’s swaying figure. “See? We’re all guilty of being jackasses. Now isn’t the time to throw blame around. There’s better things to talk about, right?”

Connor shook off Hank’s hold and rounded on Nines again, a compass with a furious arrow that couldn’t be redirected for long. “What were you even  _ doing  _ with him?” 

Nines couldn’t meet his eye. “Helping with a job,” he said tightly.

“Since when do you ever do things like that?” Connor spat derisively. “And with Reed of all people?!”

“As if you’re one to talk!” Nines snapped, finding the courage to glare. “You run off with that witcher of yours every change you get, and you judge me for doing the same?”

“I’m not the one who nearly got himself killed in some fucked up cursed tower, Nines!”

“Cursed tower— Was that the job Gavin was on?” Jeffrey asked, desperately trying to keep up. Connor turned towards the old witcher woodenly even as Hank began to explain.

“Something was wrong with the information Gavin got or… or the enchantment was stronger than he anticipated,” Hank sighed, looking a bit haggard around the eyes. “We don’t know all that much. When we pulled them out of the worst of it they weren’t in any condition to explain much to us.” He shot a careful glare in Connor’s direction. “They still aren’t. They should rest and we can do this tomorrow.”

“It wasn’t that powerful when we arrived,” Nines muttered, feeling the need to defend himself in the meanwhile. 

Connor scoffed. “It was plenty powerful by the time I got there.”

Sensing the argument about to rekindle into something unmanageable, Jeffrey quickly inserted himself between the two witches. “Let’s not get into this right now. You’re all hurt and tired, right? Let’s just call it a night for now. There’s no use arguing like this. Save it for tomorrow.”

“Jeffrey—”

Jeffrey cut Connor off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t ‘Jeffrey’ me. You look like you’re about to collapse, Connor.”

Connor opened his mouth to argue only to close it with a tired huff. He did look awful. Pale, drawn, swaying slightly now that he didn’t have his anger to keep him moving. Nines felt a bit of guilt at that. How much energy had Connor expended getting them out of that place? Too much, clearly. If anything had gone wrong… 

Somehow it was easier to swallow when it was just his own life he was risking, not his brother’s on top of it. 

“That sounds… like a good idea,” Nines offered, rubbing at his eye with the meat of his palm. He looked over at the wall Gavin was leaning against and took a step towards him. “Let’s just deal with this all tomorrow and…” He trailed off, stopped mid step by a hand gripping his wrist. 

Slowly, Nines turned his head and looked at Connor. Because of course it was Connor stopping him now. “What is it?” he asked, drawing up the last bits of patience he had left to spare. He tried to tug his wrist free only for Connor to tighten his grip all the more. “Connor. Let go.”

“You’re sharing a room with me,” his brother said icily, the same sort of tone he used to employ when they were children to tell Nines that the topic was not up for discussion. “It’s upstairs. Not over there.”

He was really going to make this a thing, wasn’t he? Of all the things to start when he was already this fucking tired. “I’m staying with Gavin,” Nines told him slowly. “Let go of my wrist.”

“You’re staying with me,” Connor snapped. He held him so tightly that the bones in Nines’s wrist grinded together a little bit. “You’ve put me through enough tonight on behalf of that idiot. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

Nines, drained as he was, still found enough energy left to lower the temperature of the room a considerable few degrees. “Let me go, Connor,” he repeated frigidly. “I won’t ask again.”

“Connor—” 

Connor didn’t even turn his head. “Stay  _ out  _ of this, Hank.” Behind him, Nines watched the witcher throw up his hands and head towards the stairs, the coward. But honestly… if Nines thought he could retreat, he probably would have too. Connor didn’t succumb to his temper often. He was too composed for that usually. Even now he was trying to reel it all in, to put his careful, controlled mask back on as if it would help him convince Nines that his way was the better way. Softer now, more conciliatory but still not asking, Connor tried, “Nines. You’re staying with me. The room I have is bigger, comfortable. I’ll look over you and make sure you’re okay.”

And leave Gavin alone to look over his own? Leave in across an unfamiliar keep where Nines couldn’t see him, touch him, make  _ sure  _ that he was alive and not… not…

Nines shook his head furiously. “No, I’m staying with Gavin. This isn’t up for debate.” He tried to pull away, or, barring that, drag Connor behind him so he could go to Gavin’s side. Connor followed for all of two steps before digging in his heels and grinding him to a halt. “Connor,” Nines said, sharper now. “Just let go of me!”

“Do you think I wasn’t worried about you?” Connor shouted, loud enough to freeze Nines in place. Something compressed in Nines’s chest. Guilt. “I thought you were going to die there! Why won’t you just let me take care of you, Nines?”

“Because that’s not what I need right now, Connor!” Nines shot back, not much of a shout with his voice so raspy and haggard. How much had he screamed today, writhing on the floor of that tower? He’d called for Connor to save him, but not for his sake. The tremors began again, chattering his teeth and blurring his vision. “I… I just need this right now, Con. Just let me stay with him. Please.”

Connor stared at him, wide-eyed and more than confused. He looked gutted. The grip on Nines’s wrist loosened, but part of him guessed it was from shock more than a conscious decision to let him go. “What has he done to you?” Connor whispered. “Even when you were in that place you wouldn’t stop calling his name.”

The guilt rose up in a boiling, churning mass. Nines swallowed it down and shook his head. He slipped his hand free from Connor’s. Instead of moving away, he closed the distance between them. He enveloped his brother in his arms and buried his face in the crook of Connor’s neck. 

“I still love you, Connor,” Nines promised as he held his brother tight. “I’ll talk to you in the morning. About everything. Just... let me have tonight.”

Connor squeezed him hard enough to hurt his ribs. For a moment it didn’t seem as if he would let go, but slowly, glacially, his grip began to loosen. Nines found it possible to pull away. “First thing in the morning,” Connor warned shakily, still angry, still viciously, viciously angry. “First thing in the morning, we’re going to have a long talk.”

Nines let out a ragged breath. “That’s fine.”

“I still might kill him.”

Nines sighed heavily. “So long as you wait until morning to do it,” he gave in, rubbing at his eyes. He looked over towards the end of the room and found Gavin watching him. He was listing against the wall heavily, eyes fluttering as if he could barely keep them open. “Good night, Connor,” Nines said, sparing his brother one last look before drifting over to the waiting witcher. Gavin shouldn’t be standing. He needed to lay down, rest…

“Come on,” Jeffrey said quietly. Nines glanced over his shoulder and saw the old witcher wrap an arm around Connor’s waist, tugging him towards the stairs Hank had retreated up earlier. “Let’s get you to bed too. You’ve used too much magic today.”

“It was horrible, Jeffrey,” Connor mumbled. He covered his face with his filthy, dirt-covered hands. “I’m just so— so angry.”

“You’re scared, Connor,” the witcher corrected gently. “Let me walk you upstairs. We can have a cup of tea and talk about it if you want.”

Nines turned back around. He wasn’t meant to hear that, and he did his brother one kindness in that moment: he pretended he hadn’t heard anything and helped Gavin leave the room. 

“Where are we going?” he muttered, coaxing Gavin’s arm over his shoulder so he could help support him down the hall. Nines had never been in the witchers’ ancestral keep before, but he had heard plenty of stories of it along the way. That, coupled with the few scant moments of that infamous scrying session, made up the bulk of his familiarity with the place. There were rusted weapons all over, and old, broken furniture pressed into every available corner. It looked more abandoned than lived in, and the energy in the air was stale and heavy with a history too bloody to stay aloft after all these centuries. Nines took it all in as they walked; Gavin, meanwhile, barely glanced anywhere but forward.

“To my room,” he answered tiredly, limping and leaning and trusting the bulk of his weight to Nines. His face was pale and heavy bags darkened the spaces under his eyes. He didn’t look good, but at least he was still alive. 

“You live here?” Nines wondered, unable to keep the note of disgust from his voice. 

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Gavin huffed, pulling them towards a dusty, rusty door. “A witcher lives his life on the road for the most part. It’s just a place to sleep; this hasn’t been home since I was a child.”

The door opened and they entered, and Nines found it very, very difficult to imagine a child of any sort living within. It was hard to reconcile all he knew of Gavin and the room he looked at now. It was… small. Unassuming. Just a barebones cot with a few blankets, a flat, shapeless pillow. No personality to speak of, to the point that Nines felt they had the wrong room. But… Gavin was hobbling inside, and he groaned as he collapsed onto the cot, his head hanging heavily as he scrubbed at his hair with his filthy hands. 

“That was such a shitshow,” the witcher croaked. “Maybe you should’ve stayed with your brother.”

“He’ll get over it,” Nines said without thinking, the response automatic, his ability to care about Connor or consequences very,  _ very  _ low suddenly. He made for the cot as well. Gavin made room for him without a word. It wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, he noticed as he sat down. Nothing at all like the bed he had in his treehouse. Maybe it made a little more sense now why Gavin had been so reluctant to wake up after that first night together if this was what he was used to sleeping on. 

Gavin grunted, and it wasn’t a very optimistic sound. He slumped against Nines’s shoulder and buried his face in his arm. “I feel like a pile of shit,” he said curtly, if a little bit muffled. 

Nines winced and tried to hide it. It was hard to summon up the energy to be acerbic, but for the sake of pretending things were normal, he tried his best anyway as Gavin tried to make himself comfortable against his side. “You smell like it too— ngh!”

Gavin recoiled. He looked at Nines for what felt like the first time in hours and zeroed in on the bloody tear near where he’d laid his head. “You’re hurt,” Gavin frowned, his touch softening until he barely rested the weight of his hand on Nines’s shoulder. His fingers plucked at the ripped fabric. “When did this happen?”

“I don’t know.” Between one bad vision and the next. Nines winced as Gavin tugged roughly at his shirt, too clumsy with his own pains to be gentler in undressing him. A wave of anxiety undercut the pain. He looked at the witcher nervously. “Are you alright? What…” He trailed off, doubting everything. Should he ask? Should he pretend nothing happened? He wanted to. Gods, did he want to, even if every blink of his eyes brought him back to that nightmare, to that tower.

Gavin’s face contorted. He pointedly didn’t look at him. “What did I see?” he guessed as he finally gave up and ripped the laces holding the stained shirt together. Nines closed his eyes as the garment dragged over his stinging skin. It fell to the floor a moment later, and a warm hand touched his cheek. “Do you really want to talk about that right now?” came the raspy non-answer to the question he’d been too scared to ask. 

Nines opened his eyes. He stared into Gavin’s. “No,” he whispered. 

The hand on his cheek stroked his face so gently. “Then let’s save it for the morning.”

It was an easy decision to make, made easier in turn by the magnetic pull that drew their lips to meet. Nines didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to sleep— not after those nightmares, and not after everything that happened after it. His hands found Gavin’s chest, fumbling for the laces on his shirt. His nails caught on the torn hems, but the difficulty just urged him to move faster. Gavin clutched at his bare arms; the kiss deepened. Nines tore through his shirt and pressed Gavin down onto the bed. He straddled the witcher’s hips and kissed him hard enough to taste blood. 

The cot groaned louder than Gavin, protesting their weight and movement. Nines didn’t pay it any mind. His hands roved down Gavin’s bare skin, cataloguing familiar dips and slopes, smoothing over scars he’d traced once upon a time with his tongue under less dire circumstances. How many new ones had their little misadventure earned the witcher? Nines broke the kiss and gasped against Gavin’s skin. He couldn’t see any cuts or wounds. Maybe… 

Maybe only he had a scar to remind him of what had almost been. 

A hand caught his cheek. Nines lifted his head and met Gavin’s eye. The room was dark, lit only by the light of the moon streaming in from a window laid in the far wall. Gavin’s skin looked so pale and ghostly under its glow. Like a corpse. Like something dead. 

“Nines?” he whispered, even his voice a shadow of its usual self. “Are you alright?”

Nines didn’t trust himself to speak. He covered Gavin’s hand with his own, holding it to his face, and nodded. Gavin’s expression softened. His eyes shifted, landing on Nines’s shoulder. 

“You’re bleeding,” he sighed. “Let me up.”

Nines let go of Gavin’s hand and shifted back, allowing him to sit up but not stand. It was enough though; Gavin just twisted around and grabbed an edge of the nearest sheet. He tore it with a muted rip and bound the strip around Nines’s shoulder. He tucked the edges until they lay flat and pressed a kiss to the covered wound. 

“All better,” he breathed, pulling away a little. He caught Nines in a gentle kiss. “We’ll have Jeffrey take a look at it in the morning.”

“It’s fine,” Nines said, guiding Gavin back into laying down with a few more kisses, some trailing down his jaw until he found the pale line of his throat. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“But it might scar,” Gavin countered quietly, lifting a hand to rest lightly on the edge of the bandage. 

When Nines pulled away, he found the man frowning. “It’s alright,” he whispered. “I don’t care.”

Gavin’s eyes met his. His expression was solemn, uncharacteristic. “I don’t like it,” he said simply. “I’m the one with the scars. Not you.” 

Nines didn’t know what to say to that. There was a feeling welling up inside him. Powerful. Deafening. Kissing Gavin didn’t lessen its intensity— but it helped just a little. So, he kept kissing him. He flattened his body along the length of Gavin’s, pouring every ounce of himself into the press of his lips, the gliding wetness of his tongue. Gavin’s hands smoothed down his back, dipped beneath his waistband. Nines pressed his thigh between Gavin’s legs and ground against the waiting hardness. 

It felt natural to fall into one another like this. It just made sense. The fear that had made itself at home behind Nines’s eyes lessened, ebbing away with every ounce of pleasure Gavin’s touch brought him. He rolled his body against Gavin’s, drank in the way his hairy, scarred chest dragged along his softer skin. A desperation itched behind his teeth, in the base of his gums. More. He needed more. 

It took a concentrated effort to break the kiss for breath. He gasped against Gavin’s cheek, lifting his ass needily for the wandering hands that had loosened his belt and worked their way beneath his trousers. “G-Gavin,” he wheezed, clutching at the man’s hair, angling his head this way, sharing the meager air between them. “P-Please. I want you. I n-need it.”

“I know,” Gavin answered, just as breathless, just as overcome. His eyes were wide and desperate as he looked around the room. He bit at his lip. He didn’t need to say anything; Nines could tell already that there were no supplies for ‘more’ in this room, and Nines was in no position to change that reality to better suit their present needs. 

Nines dropped his head and groaned softly against Gavin’s shoulder. Even without lube or magic, Gavin’s fingers felt good. 

“I’ve got an idea,” the witcher said after a few seconds of silence. He removed his hands to Nines’s chagrin and tugged on Nines’s hips until he moved. “C’mon. Roll over.”

Nines did as he was told. They rolled over onto their sides, Gavin’s hips pressed firmly against Nines’s rear. It was inelegant, but for once Nines couldn’t bring himself to care. He was too tired for more strenuous, too tired to make it anything more than what it already was. Gavin’s calloused hand felt better than good slipping down the front of his trousers. His fingers were crooked, slow but confident. Nines tipped his head back and moaned quietly against the witcher’s ear. 

“That’s it,” Gavin breathed, his awe morphing into a gasp as Nines wedged his hand between them and cupped him through his pants. Inelegant. Perfection all the same. He dipped a finger inside of Nines’s heat and made him cry out, weak and reedy. “I’ve got you. You’re fine.”

It was strange how even as he said that, it just proved that Gavin was the one that was fine, not Nines. The fact that he could speak at all, touch him like this… somehow that almost felt better than the fingers working their way inside him. It was hard for Nines to get wet on his own, his magic easing the way more often than not when he wanted to fool around quickly and without any hassle, but right now, his body seemed more than on board with helping him along. Gavin was good at that, at turning him on. The changes his body had undergone at the academy couldn’t win out completely when paired with a witcher’s touch. But this time… Nines doubted it was just Gavin’s witcher status that did it for him. 

A second finger found its way inside. Nines shivered and failed to suppress another moan. He stopped thinking about unnecessary things. He fumbled blindly for Gavin’s waistband and shoved his hand inside. He grabbed Gavin’s length and stroked it, and moaned even louder when Gavin let out a cry of his own. Their noises echoed against the stone walls, but again, Nines didn’t bother thinking too hard about it. 

Whiskery kisses tickled the back of his neck. Gavin couldn’t seem to keep his mouth to himself. “That’s it, that’s it,” he kept saying, nipping at Nines’s earlobe, sucking on it to soothe the sting. “So wet, so good. I’ve got you, don’t worry. You’re shaking so bad for me. I’ll make you feel good, Nines. You’re gonna feel so good.”

Did he even know? Had he any comprehension of how easy it was for him to say that and make it ring true? Nines closed his eyes and rolled his hips, fucking himself on Gavin’s hand as he did his best to make Gavin feel good too. The angle was bad, his wrist was getting sore, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t  _ matter.  _ The haze of growing pleasure made it too easy to ignore, and the energy between them was never so strong as it was in moments like these, when they were in perfect tandem. 

Nines had noticed that, the compatibility. The very first time they fell into bed together… He’d had his reservations, had his own reasons for disliking Gavin, but that… There was no denying  _ that.  _ Nines bit down on his bottom lip and whined as he arched against Gavin’s chest. Connor could talk badly about Gavin all he wanted; it wouldn’t change the fact that Nines had never had a better lover. 

“Are you close?” 

Nines nodded, only managing a punched-out gasp that rattled in his lungs. His shoulder was burning, the gash probably bleeding through the thin bandage. The pain was negligible. When he recalled that tender kiss Gavin had pressed against it, the pain disappeared entirely. 

“Good. I want you to come for me, okay?” Gavin rasped, voice husky, low. His cock was a dripping mess, slicking itself in Nines’s hand. “You’re so tired, sweetheart. I want you to come. Can you do that for me?”

_ Sweetheart?  _

“Y-Yeah,” Nines gasped, unable to concentrate long enough to ask where that petname had come from. It made his cheeks burn though, and his body seemed to wind tighter the longer it rattled around in his head. 

Gavin added a third finger and pressed his palm flat against his mound. He pressed a wet, stubbled kiss just beneath his damp hairline. “Go ahead,” he whispered, holding Nines against his chest. His fingers fucked into him like a piston. “Come for me.” 

Faster. Faster, and faster… There… There! Nines’s jaw fell open and a wordless wail overtook him. Gavin’s fingers speared him as the meat of his palm ground down against his mound. He stroked Gavin as quickly as he could and arched as the pleasure began to rise, higher and higher, the tension holding him on a knife’s edge until… until— 

If Nines had the presence of mind to register the loudness of his voice, he might have been mortified at the likelihood of someone hearing them. But he didn’t. He didn’t, and even if he had he probably wouldn’t have cared. He’d had his fill of caring and worrying and fretting today. He deserved a few moments of unbridled pleasure, and it was because of that that he surrendered fully to his climax as it washed over him. 

Gavin spilled inside his trousers, against Nines’s hand, but he barely registered it. His eyes had rolled back in his skull, electricity chasing away the shadows until all he knew was white, pleasure, and Gavin. Gavin’s scent, his fingers, his rough breath and the louder groan right in his ear— Nines’s legs trembled and his entrance clenched rhythmically around the fingers buried inside him. He wished it was something better there, something that might split him wider, but it was still good. More than good. 

Next time he would have Gavin the way he wanted him, he swore to himself as his body finally grew lax. Next time, he’d make sure they had nothing but time, energy, and everything in between. 

In the dull, mindless portion of his brain still processing his surroundings, Nines felt the bed dip and the warm weight behind him disappear. Nines came down slowly despite it, his trousers worked down around his knees and the slick drying in cold patches on his inner thighs. He panted quietly into the threadbare pillow beneath his head, his body so… heavy all of a sudden. Exhaustion clawed at his eyes and in the base of his skull. He kicked weakly at his pants until they came off with his boots. He’d never missed his magic more. 

Almost as if in response to his thoughts, a thin weight settled over him. A blanket, scratchy and musty, followed by Gavin’s warm, solid weight against his back. “Are you warm enough?” Gavin asked, his voice just a ragged whisper. “This old place can get cold at night. Drafts everywhere. It’s hell.”

“It’s fine,” Nines said, unable to open his eyes. He couldn’t help but imagine Gavin though, younger, a child, nestled in this impersonal room, shivering away beneath one blanket too little to protect him from the cold. He squirmed closer to Gavin and reached for the man’s arm. It came willingly and eagerly, hitching around his waist until they were flesh to flesh, bone to bone. 

“Good,” Gavin sighed, settling down and sharing the pillow scratching at Nines’s cheek. His voice was so drowsy already. “I‘d hate to go down and find another blanket. Already took my pants off. Probably give Jeffrey a heart attack.”

“You’re a hero for the ages,” Nines mumbled back. Gavin just hummed, his sigh warming the back of Nines’s neck. 

Not much about their present circumstances was ideal. The room was still cold even with Gavin pressed so close to him, and the bed was… Well. Nines found it difficult to be diplomatic about it. It wasn’t as comfortable as his own bed, but… he supposed it was enough. Maybe because Gavin was holding him, or the sensation of warm skin against warm, living skin… Nines was too tired to ponder it. His back would ache come morning, but at least they were both alive to see morning come at all. 

And maybe when they were rested and Nines felt a little less worn thin around the edges, he’d charm them up a more comfortable bed. If they were going to spend a few days here it would be good to have a bigger one. One that made this place feel a little more like home... 

“Was what he said before true?” Gavin mumbled in the darkness of the room. His breathing was low, slow, and measured, warm puffs that teased the back of his neck. Nines pulled the man’s arm tighter around his chest, lacing their fingers, holding one another’s hands. 

“Was what true?” he wondered as he closed his eyes and floated on the precipice of sleep. 

“That you’ve been calling my name. Just mine.”

Nines stiffened. He slowly opened his eyes. 

“Just go to sleep, Gavin,” he whispered, his horror undercut by a gross realization. “We’ll... talk about it in the morning.”

“Mmkay,” Gavin sighed, already on his way off. “G’night, Nines.”

So long as they could just stay like this… 

“Goodnight, Gavin,” he answered, heart pounding furiously in his chest. 

Maybe then everything might make more sense. 


	11. Chapter 11

Nines tore through the chest loudly, tossing aside everything Gavin had ever owned or held dear in his short life. “You can’t tell me you don’t own a single shirt,” he hissed as he threw a practice sword over his shoulder, scabbard and all. “Seriously, Gavin. You cannot tell me that the only shirt you own is the one you wore here.”

Gavin groaned and buried his head beneath his pillow. “Not everyone keeps hundreds of outfits at our beck and call,” he muttered, doubting that his voice would travel but already numb to the realization that it didn’t even matter. He had hoped they might enjoy a lovely, lazy morning together in bed, especially after such a tender night, but as always, Gavin was an idiot and paid for it daily. He peeked under the edge of his pillow and glowered at the shirtless witch making a mess of his things. “Would you just give it a rest and come back to bed? It’s not even dawn yet. Worry about it later.”

The next object hit Gavin in the shoulder. “The issue won’t magically resolve itself later either,” Nines snapped, slamming the chest closed as he rose to his feet. Gavin grabbed for the… the old boot, really? Fucking asshole. He grabbed it and threw it blindly in Nines’s direction. The witch just watched it land ineffectively some distance away. “Real mature. I need a shirt, Gavin. One to replace the one you tore to pieces.”

“You started it,” Gavin mumbled into his pillow. “Just magic it back together.”

Nines inhaled sharply and let it out like a kettle hiss. “Do you have a spare shirt or not?”

Gavin turned his head and cracked open an eye. “I’ve got what I’ve got. If you don’t see one, then I don’t have one.”

Nines covered his face with his hands. His pants hung low on his hips, his shoulders and neck a mess of hickeys. “Great,” he muttered, dragging his hands down his cheeks. “Perfect. Just—” He stomped his way towards the door. “Just get your ass out of bed.”

“And where do you think you’re going?” Gavin asked, lifting himself up to follow the witch’s movements. 

Nines paused with his hand on the door, opening it with a creak of the hinges. “To go borrow one from someone else.”

Throwing back the blankets, Gavin began to get up. “Well, give me a minute to put on some pants and I’ll go with you—”

“To ask Connor for a shirt,” Nines interjected flatly, stopping Gavin cold. One side of his mouth quirked upwards. “That’s what I thought,” he muttered before slipping through the door. 

Gavin resisted the urge to throw his pillow at the door. “How am I supposed to go back to sleep after that?!” he shouted after the witch, but naturally Nines was already gone and thus didn’t bother to answer him. He let out a groan and punched the pillow instead, forcing himself into a sitting position, his bare feet chilled against the stone floor. He scrubbed at his face with his hand and ran his fingers through his messy hair. His muscles were sore, his body aching as if he’d taken a particularly harsh fall off a horse running full speed. 

“I’m injured,” he muttered to no one. “I deserve a lazy morning, don’t I?”

A lazy morning with a lover in his arms. That couldn’t be too much to ask for, right? Only it evidently was seeing as his bed was empty, his room a mess, and the potential for any of that changing deathly low. Gavin sighed heavily and forced himself to get up. He kicked through the mess Nines had made until he found his own clothing; he pulled on his shirt and pants and stomped out into the hall. If he couldn’t have slow, sleepy morning sex, the least he deserved was breakfast before the wrath of Connor came down on his head with a vengeance. 

There was no sign of Nines anywhere in the hall. There was no sign of life in general, the sun still fighting its way up the sky as it was. Gavin rubbed at his neck and stumbled his way into the main hall of the keep, taking in the familiar shapes of his childhood as he went. Kaer Morhen hadn’t been particularly homie growing up, and Jeffrey hadn’t seen fit to change that in his empty-nester years either. Dust and cobwebs covered a fair bit of the armor and weapons racks, and Gavin could smell the damp rusting the metal even at a distance. 

He picked his way through the darkness and towards the long table they usually gathered at for meals and discussions. If he were a betting man he’d guess that Jeffrey was already awake, but it would be a safe bet to make since he could now smell food peeking its head through the musty stench of the rest of the place. “Fowler?” he called out, managing a weak grin when Jeffrey popped his head around the corner of the keep’s piddly little kitchen to look at him. “Morning.”

“Morning,” he returned, disappearing inside the kitchen for a moment. The sound of clinking dishes and sizzling meat rose up before growing silent. Jeffrey reappeared with a few plates in hand. “You’re up early. Sleep well after all that excitement last night?”

The very thought drained the energy from Gavin’s body. He pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, letting his head fall onto the wood with a dull thunk. “Don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled. “Just fucking feed me before I die on this table.”

“Rough night then?” Jeffrey asked, setting down a plate beside his head.

Gavin groaned as he opened his eyes. The plate was piled high with eggs and meat, a hunk of bread sitting on top of it all. The smell was nothing to write home about, Jeffrey’s skills extending far more in the realm of combat and training than in the kitchen, but even then there was something nostalgic about it. How many times had he eaten Jeffrey’s charred venison and stodgy eggs? As he heaved himself upright and dragged the plate closer, he felt a bit of tension ease from his spine. Despite everything, he was still home. 

Still home, still alive, and still safe with Nines, angry at him or otherwise. 

Flicking his gaze towards the old witcher, Gavin tore into the bread and muttered, “Rough  _ month.”  _ He chewed, swallowed, and grabbed for the weak ale in the nearest tankard to wash it all down. Gasping, he went on, “You know, I never really understood all your horror stories about witches.”

Jeffrey sat down heavily in the seat opposite Gavin. He raised a knowing brow and reached for a sliver of meat from the platter in the middle. “Oh? And how about now?”

Gavin gave him a look, one that sent Jeffrey into a fit of laughter. “Right, yeah, laugh it up while you can,” Gavin sneered as he dug into his eggs. “You’re in it all now too, you know. This isn’t just my mess anymore. You have to deal with it too.”

Lacing his fingers knowingly, Jeffrey chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, I tried so hard to teach the younger generations in hopes that they wouldn’t follow the paths of my past mistakes, and yet the world always seems to make it happen regardless. You’re the one in the middle of this, Reed. I’m just an unfortunate bystander who has to clean up everything you break.”

“Yeah, well, at least we’re still alive to make messes,” Gavin muttered into his cup. 

Across the table, Jeffrey’s mirth transformed into a mask of seriousness. “Right. Connor told me a bit about it last night before bed. What happened, Gavin? I thought your contract was routine. Easy.”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I checked the place before bringing Nines into things, and it wasn’t even remotely that powerful.” He set down the cup and glowered at his remaining breakfast. He could hear the sounds of conversation coming from the staircase across the room. The rest must have finally gotten their asses into gear. Gavin looked at Jeffrey. “It made no sense. I thought we were fine, but then we just… found ourselves in a nightmare instead.”

“Enchantments don’t tend to shift like that. There’s got to be something at work with that tower.” Jeffrey laced his fingers, resting his chin on his knuckles. “I know you don’t want to hear this but asking Connor is probably your best bet at figuring out what happened.”

Gavin snorted. His eyes flicked towards the staircase. If he listened closely he could just make out the sound of movement, conversation. Loud voices growing incrementally louder. They were going to come down here soon. “I don’t have a problem asking him what he thinks about it; he’s the one who wants to skin me as soon as I open my mouth though, and that tends to put a damper on picking his brain.” Gavin drummed his fingers against the side of his cup. His shoulders slumped. “He thinks I put Nines in danger. I didn’t even know we  _ were  _ in danger until it was too late.”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs rose up. Jeffrey held back whatever he intended to say and settled on patting Gavin’s forearm with a heavy, calloused hand instead. “I’m going to go get some more plates,” he said, lifting himself out of his chair with a sigh. “Try not to start a fight, okay? I’m not as young as I used to be, and I’m not keen on breaking up a scuffle before the dew’s off the grass.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one gunning for a fight,” Gavin said as he drained his cup dry. Jeffrey sighed and wandered back towards the kitchen just as Hank stomped his way down the stairs. As his back he was tailed by two witches, both arguing with one another in some weird language. Gavin met Hank’s gaze for a moment, and when he got nothing from it beyond the impression that they had been at it for awhile, Gavin looked at Nines and narrowly avoided swallowing his tongue. 

Nines had made good on his idea to ask Connor to borrow a shirt to replace the one still laying in pieces on his floor. The only thing was, this shirt was clearly too small for Nines. Like… really small. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise given how different the twins’ body types were, but Gavin had to resist the urge to gape. The color he’d picked out was a deep, muted black instead of the rich purples or blues Nines normally favored. Gavin couldn’t help but stare at how it clung to the witch’s shoulders, how it rode up and showed off an inch of skin above his waistband. As much as he didn’t like Connor, Gavin couldn’t help but be impressed. 

Nines looked good in that. Really good. 

“Stop staring if you know what’s good for you,” Hank muttered under his breath once he reached the table, the twins still bickering in a language that sounded completely made up. The bags under Hank’s eyes gave Gavin’s a run for his money; the two must have refused Hank the decency of a gentle wake up call too. He reached for some bread and shot Gavin a pointed look. “You should’ve heard Connor when Nines came calling.”

Sometimes Gavin didn’t like being right. Still, he put on a brave face and smiled. “What, he didn’t appreciate the visit?”

Hank rubbed at his eyes as Connor futilely tried to drag Nines down beside him on the bench. “You’re a moron, Reed,” he said simply. Nines tugged himself free from Connor’s grip and joined Gavin on his side of the table. Connor plopped down angrily beside Hank. The temperature dropped ten degrees in an instant, and Gavin felt Nines’s hand grab his thigh beneath the table in a decidedly un-sexy way. Sharp nails dug into the meat of his leg. A warning. God, and they hadn’t even finished breakfast yet. 

“How’d everyone sleep?” Jeffrey bravely asked as he doled out a few more plates and let the witches pick over the options with critical, turned up noses. He smiled at their antics, taking it with the good humor he had never shown his charges as children. Back then, if you didn’t like what Jeffrey cooked, you went hungry. That or braved the surrounding forest to find yourself a rabbit to try and do better. 

They rarely did better.

“Fine,” Hank said, doing his damnedest to keep things light and normal. He reached towards his eggs with a hand but caught a heated look from the witch at his side. Hank sighed and reached for a fork and scooped up some. He took a bite and swallowed it down, and only then did Connor’s expression begin to thaw. 

“Good, considering the circumstances,” Connor said, addressing Jeffrey with more deference than he gave most people in his life. His smile was almost sweet when he looked at the old man, but the second he looked anywhere else his eyes took on a hard edge. He stared at his brother and then cut across to Gavin, who unfortunately had chosen the wrong moment to fill his mouth with meat. He struggled not to choke as Connor went on to say, “I can imagine it would have been better if certain annoyances had been dealt with sooner though.”

“Connor,” Nines said in a warning tone. 

“Nines,” Connor sniped back, his smile tight at the corners. 

Gavin swallowed his mouthful and snorted into his hand. “You really look like twins when you get like this,” he said, glancing at Hank but not liking what the man was sending back his way. Come on, it was a joke. How was he going to survive if he didn’t ease the tension in the room a little? He winced as Nines’s claws dug even deeper into his leg. 

But it was too late. Connor, like a shark, had scented blood in the water. His soft brown eyes held a razor edge when they pinned Gavin to his seat. His smile was fixed in a terrifying display of intent. “Speaking of annoyances that have yet to be dealt with,” he said smoothly, and Gavin swallowed hard, his throat clicking. “How was your night, Reed? Was it restful? Did my brother’s bleeding body grant you some much needed comfort through the night?”

“Connor!” Nines snapped, the color rising high on his cheeks. “Would you stop that?”

Hank reached out a hand and bravely set it on Connor’s shoulder. “Seriously, Con,” he said in a low voice. 

Connor immediately tried to shake it off. “You told me to wait until morning, Hank,” he hissed, locking his eyes on Gavin to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. “It’s morning. I’m going to get my answers, and I’m not going to let you distract me from it.”

On his other side, Jeffrey settled a hand on Connor’s opposite shoulder. Connor looked at him, but he didn’t try to shrug off Jeffrey’s hand like he had done Hank’s. “Do you want answers or his head on a platter?” the old witcher asked, quirking a brow.

“Don’t give him ideas,” Gavin muttered.

“Because you’re not going to get either if you come at it like that,” Jeffrey kept going, speaking louder to drown out Gavin’s aside. The man squeezed Connor’s shoulder and settled him into his seat. “Have some food. Let’s let them tell their side of what happened and we can point fingers later. Does that sound good?”

Connor made a face that said no, it didn’t sound good, but evidently the witch had enough respect for Jeffrey not to make something of it. He relaxed in increments, glaring hotly at his plate of food. He grabbed for a fork and stabbed into a sliver of meat harder than necessary. Gavin’s appetite disappeared, and Nines seemed to regret that the ale was watered down as he guzzled it like a man desperate for some kind of release from his torment. 

“That’s better, right?” Jeffrey tried, looking at all of them and not getting much for his trouble. He let his hand slip off Connor’s shoulder and rest on the table instead. “Gavin, Nines, why don’t you two talk us through what happened? I know I, for one, would love to hear the full story.”

Gavin looked at Nines. “Maybe you should explain it,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. He had a feeling Connor would just interrupt him if he tried speaking more than a sentence at a time. “You know the magic side of things better anyway.”

“Right,” Nines murmured, easing his grip beneath the table. He flattened his palm on top of Gavin’s thigh and set down his cup with the other. “I’m not sure about the specifics of what happened either, but as far as I could sense when we got there... it was just a standard enchantment trap.” 

“Well, clearly it wasn’t.” Connor let Hank put a piece of bread on his plate, his expression softening slightly at the gesture. He picked it up and nibbled a corner. It made him look cuter than he actually was. More harmless. “You checked the perimeter before you went in, right?” 

“Yes, Connor, I took the obvious precautions,” Nines responded waspishly. “I’m not an idiot.” He pushed around his own food on his plate with his free hand. Gavin frowned, covering the one on his thigh. He squeezed it gently and some of the tension bled out of Nines’s shoulders. 

“Of course not,” Connor agreed easily. His eyes cut to Gavin in an instant, startling him. “This one is.”

“Connor,” Hank sighed, just as Jeffrey looked towards the heavens as if bracing for calamity. “I thought you were going to let them talk.”

“I will,” Connor argued, still glowering at Gavin. Could he set him on fire with just a look? Gavin wasn’t sure, and he definitely didn’t like his chances on it. “I just want it to be known where I stand on this. I’ve seen how you go about your jobs, Hank. I know how much preparation and research you do before diving headfirst into something. Clearly there was something lacking in Reed’s process, wouldn’t you say?”

“Connor, he—”

“Nines, stop defending him!” Connor cut in, a note of desperation taking over. “Stop sticking your neck out for him. This man nearly got you killed and you want to protect him?” The witch shook off Hank’s hand as it reached for him. He stood up, looming over the table. “I thought you had more sense than this!”

Nines stiffened. Something flared in the pit of Gavin’s stomach as a hunted look passed over Nines’s face. Was it possible to have a breakfast that didn’t end up in bloodshed? Before today Gavin would’ve thought yes, but now… Gods, these two just ruined all of his expectations. Ruined them and took pleasure in doing so. 

“Would you just listen for once?” Gavin snapped, drawing the attention of everyone at the table in one fell swoop. Nines’s eyes widened. He looked at Gavin as if he were looking at a man about to die. Gavin ignored it and stared Connor down. “I didn’t do shit on purpose. We had no reason to believe it was going to be that bad. None of the research or investigating I did indicated that the tower was anything more than a local annoyance.” He jabbed his thumb in Nines’s direction to the witch’s growing horror. “And your brother, your very competent,  _ trained  _ brother, didn’t sense anything was off either. It was clearly some kind of trap and the only thing I’m guilty of is falling for it alongside everyone else.”

Gavin panted a little by the end of it. Connor, on the other hand, was standing so still that it looked like he wasn’t breathing at all. The room fell silent and Nines couldn’t stop looking from Gavin to Connor and back again. Gavin did his best to ignore it; he kept his eyes on Connor and Connor alone. Weren’t there wives’ tales about looking a witch in the eye so it couldn’t hurt you? Or maybe that was snakes. Gavin never had been good at spotting the difference when it came to cold-blooded things. 

“You nearly got my brother killed,” Connor said in a quiet, silken voice. “My little brother.”

“Do you think I don’t care? I don’t know if it’s escaped your attention, but I do actually give a shit about him too.”

Nines’s face bled red beside him. Gavin did his best to ignore it, but he could feel his own cheeks growing hot too. They laced fingers beneath the table. The… intimacy of the act was a little outside of Gavin’s realm of experience, but it felt nice right now. It felt nice to know he had Nines at his side during this, that he probably wouldn’t let his brother kill him if it came down to it. He’d heard that near death experiences brought people together; maybe this was just carry-over from the night before. It didn’t calm his sudden nerves all that much when he considered it, but it was something. 

“It’s not his fault, Connor. I don’t want to have to say it again.” Nines’s voice was firm, his pale blue eyes finding Connor’s without a single flinch this time. “I did everything I was supposed to do before we went inside. I did everything  _ you  _ would have done, and it still ended up the way it did. I don’t know why the spell felt so weak before or why it suddenly bit back once we were inside. It was almost like it…” 

He drifted off, gaze finding the table as he pondered his own words. Gavin angled towards him after a moment. There was something in Nines’s expression that spoke of an epiphany on the horizon. 

Connor sat down in his chair in an instant, clearly sensing it too. “Almost like it  _ what _ ?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. 

Nines lifted his head, his lips twisting into a confused frown. “Almost like it had been waiting for someone stronger than the usual villager to wander inside it. Like it had been biding its time, saving its energy, and then snapped down on us when it sensed what it had in its mouth.”

The air turned heavy, weighty. Gavin swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “Are you…” His voice croaked. He paused, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Are you suggesting that thing was waiting for us?”

“Probably not you specifically,” Connor said, too intent on his thoughts to add some acid to the words. He stared down at his plate, one hand covering his mouth as his brows knitted together. “That’s… a witch-trap? I’ve never heard of one before, but it’s… not impossible.”

“Why would someone want to trap a witch?” Hank wondered. 

“Plenty of reasons,” Jeffrey replied tiredly. “Do you know how much power our lovely friends here hold? If someone could harness that and control it themselves… It wouldn’t be good.”

Connor nodded grimly. Nines paled, rubbing at his wounded shoulder. “That’s why it didn’t kill you. It wanted to incapacitate you until the caster could get there and make use of you.” He bared his teeth as he stared at the wall. 

Gavin looked between Connor and Nines. Sensing the topic had shifted enough to be safe, he quietly chimed in, “Is there any way to track whoever did it? I sure as shit would like to have a conversation with them. Probably involving the sharp end of my sword.”

“That’s if I let you get to them first,” Connor muttered, the first shared sentiment they’d had between them. His gaze flicked towards Nines. “You know how that magic felt, right? Think we could work a tracer if we went back?”

Still pale, Nines pondered the question seriously. “It’s… possible,” he mumbled, still gripping his shoulder. Gavin squeezed his hand beneath the table and it earned him a weak smile. “I got the impression that they hadn’t been there in a while though. There’s no telling how far they may be, or if they’re on the move now that the trap was tripped.”

“We’ll have to go after them. Hank is a good tracker. If we get a lead, he can get us close, right?”

Hank startled. He sat up, suddenly alert. “Excuse me? What are we doing all of a sudden?”

Connor sighed. “Keep up, Hank. We clearly are going after the trapper.”

A sinking feeling took root in Gavin’s stomach. “Wait… You can’t mean all of us work together?”

“Well, of course,” Nines said quietly. “Don’t you want revenge too?”

“You don’t have to come,” Connor said, looking down his nose at him. “In fact, I encourage you to stay here instead. I know Hank’s skills. He’s more than enough for what we need.”

Gavin bristled, caught between the sudden urge to flip Connor off and say he was going and digging his heels in because he still didn’t see why  _ all  _ of them had to go together. Certainly he and Nines could take care of this? If he needed Connor’s help to run a tracer they could just do that and then split up. Why did they have to go together? 

“But… the keep’s enchantments,” Hank blustered, clearly grasping for straws now that he knew he was in the same boat as Gavin. He looked to Jeffrey for help. “That needs doing, right? That’s why I brought Connor here. We need to focus on that more.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think we can wait a while,” Jeffrey said with a smile. He rose out of his seat and began stacking up empty plates. “It’d make a good winter project, right? Go see to your witch-trapper and come back here before it gets cold. I’m sure with two witches wintering here the job will get done even faster than if Connor took it all on alone, so really, I think the keep can wait a little longer.”

“You are a sadist,” Gavin said weakly. “You really want me to die, don’t you?”

Jeffrey made for the kitchen. “You’re a competent guy,” he called out as he walked, the laugh clear in his voice even with his back turned. “I’m sure you’ll all work together well. You’re all professionals, right?”

Gavin met eyes with Hank across the table. They both took no comfort in Jeffrey’s assessment. 

“It’s not a bad idea,” Nines reasoned, his attention focused on his brother, naturally. “There are benefits to having another practitioner around to consult with.”

“And if we get into another enchantment situation it would definitely be helpful to have someone on the outside to break it again,” Connor said dryly. “Do you know where your bags are? I know you weren’t traveling empty-handed.”

“We were staying at a local tavern near the tower. All of my things should be there. We paid for a few nights, so I doubt the owners would have touched anything yet.”

Connor nodded. “Then you and I will go back and fetch your things. You can’t keep stealing from my bags. You’ll stretch out all of my favorite clothes.”

“Do we have any say in any of this?” Hank wondered. Both witches started a bit, turning to look at the witcher as one. They had clearly forgotten they weren’t alone. 

“You can say yes,” Connor said with a tone Gavin didn’t like at all. He patted Hank on the cheek and smiled. “You and Reed can prepare our supplies while we fetch Nines’s things. If we move quickly we’ll be able to move out this afternoon.”

Hank scoffed in disbelief. “We don’t have enough horses here for all of us, and I know you’ll be complaining in an hour if we ride double.”

Connor batted his lashes. “Oh, Hank. You already know what I have in mind.”

Hank’s face drained of blood. “No…” he whispered. 

“Yes,” Connor smiled. “There’s no use kicking up a fuss. It’s already decided.”

“Connor, no. Seriously.” Hank’s eyes took on a hunted look, his head shaking furiously. “No portals. Not again.”

“What’s wrong with taking portals?” Nines wondered at his side. Gavin looked at him woodenly, eyes wide. “It’s not that bad.”

“Witchers are weaklings about the stupidest things, brother,” Connor said, wiping his hands on a napkin Jeffrey must have brought to the table just for him. “Don’t worry. After the first three jumps they’ll get used to it. And if they don’t, well…” He trailed off with a mean sounding laugh. “They’ll just have to deal with it.”

Gavin buried his face in his hands and let their planning wash over him in a wave of words he didn’t want to comprehend. Across from him he knew Hank was doing something similar. What had he gotten himself into? Traveling as a group was his own personal definition of hell, and to add on Connor to it? Two prissy witches, one of which would rather see him dead than in bed with his little brother? 

He would die. He would actually die, and there was absolutely nothing to be done about it. 

A hand rested on his thigh, but not to hold him back this time. Gavin peeked through the cracks in his fingers and saw the excitement brimming in Nines’s eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” he promised, too positive by far. “You’ll see. We’ll get to the bottom of it in no time.”

And for better or worse, Gavin was stuck with it. He just hoped he didn’t die in the process. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank god for chowbot reminding me how lambert canonically fishes in the game

Nines regretted just about every decision that had led to him thinking that traveling with his brother would be a good idea. He regretted it more than anything he had ever regretted before, and given they had only been on the road a grand total of three days, he felt that had to be some kind of record. 

He really hadn’t thought it would be this bad. Connor had seemed just as excited as he was when they had gone back to the inn to pick up his belongings and Gavin’s horse, but… 

_ “Don’t worry,” Connor had said, wrapping an arm around Nines’s waist as they stepped through the portal. “I’ll make sure that witcher doesn’t get you hurt again.”  _

He should have known Connor would make things difficult sooner rather than later. 

“Is it really worth stopping at the next town?” Hank asked as he wrestled with the bedroll and the bindings that kept it shut tightly. At his side stood the asshole in question, Connor holding the map in front of him with an intent that Nines wasn’t sure suited him. There was a worrying intensity about his brother these days. One that wasn’t healthy. The old witcher lifted his head, panting a little, and added, “We’ve got plenty of provisions still. It’d just be a waste of time.”

Connor rolled his eyes. Of course, Nines didn’t see him do it, but he knew his brother. He knew him well, and he knew what that tension in his shoulders meant. “What you classify as a ‘waste of time’, Hank, is what I call the basic necessities of life.” The map rattled a little as it was lowered. Connor delivered unto Hank a withering look. “A hot meal. A bed that doesn’t contain rocks. A  _ bath.” _

The last one was said with such a pointed tone that Nines couldn’t help but snort. So, it was just a common thing for witchers to reek to high heaven. It was a little comforting to know it wasn’t just Gavin. Speaking of which…

“What do you mean, a hot meal? I get that it’s not exactly royal fare, but we’ve been managing pretty alright so far,” Hank critiqued, giving up with the bedroll to rise to his feet. He dusted off his hands and placed them on his hips. “Just say you’re sick of venison, Con. We all are. That’s why Gavin’s out getting fish.”

Nines shifted, his once comfortable squat now suddenly too still for him to bear. He tightened his grip on his knees and fought the urge to rise to his feet. He found himself looking into the patch of trees Gavin had disappeared through an hour ago. 

“That’s exactly what I mean, Hank,” Connor sighed. “Your idea of a balanced diet is substituting one meat for another. We can’t just keep eating roasted game day in and day out. We’re out of bread. What about vegetables? Fruit?”

How much longer would Gavin need to fish? Nines hadn’t had a moment alone with him in… Gods, days now. Connor saw to it well enough that they were never out of his sight. Nines squirmed again, suddenly feeling a little warm despite the chill beginning to creep into the air. 

“We’re in the middle of a forest, Con. If you want to forage, go forage. Don’t divert our whole trip three days just to eat in town for a change.”

Nines pivoted his head back around, staring at the back of his brother’s head. “I can forage,” he said, desperately hoping he didn’t sound too eager. 

“I’ve never been to this part of the country before,” Connor went on, acting as if he hadn’t heard. Though, to be fair, he probably hadn’t. When Connor was in a mood, he rarely had the attention span to pay any mind to things outside of his limited range of focus. “If I try to forage here I could poison all of us.”

Nines rose to his feet this time. “I’ve been around here,” he said, this time gaining Hank’s attention. “I know what’s edible and what isn’t.”

The look of relief on Hank’s face was intense. “There we go,” the witcher said, waving a hand in Nines’s direction. “Go forage and bring back something that passes your brother’s high standards—”

Connor whipped around as if he hadn’t even realized Nines was behind him. “You’ve been in this area before?” he asked, almost wording it like an accusation. Nines didn’t let it faze him. This time, he rolled his eyes. 

“A time or two,” he said vaguely, not feeling it pertinent to mention that those times had been over fifty years ago, and he’d hardly done much foraging then. 

“Good enough for me,” Hank said, wrapping an arm around Connor’s waist to pull him flush against his side. Connor’s eyes widened, his cheeks tinting pink before he could manage to act like he hated the contact, and Nines wondered if his brother’s dogged attempts at keeping him and Gavin apart inadvertently affected his own chances of getting laid. Hank pulled Connor around, guiding him over to their bags and horses. “C’mon. I’m not setting up camp by myself again.”

Connor tried to crane his neck around, to look at Nines desperately. “But it’s not safe—”

“I think he’s old enough to go mushroom hunting without you holding his hand, Connor,” Hank chided quietly. Still, he turned a bit and met Nines’s eyes. “Don’t get yourself killed, got it? I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Hank—!”

Nines let out a bubble of a laugh and turned on his heel. “I’ll do my best,” he promised before diving headfirst into the foliage. It would be hard to die mushroom hunting when he had no intention of hunting any mushrooms, wouldn’t it? 

The sound of Connor’s disgruntled complaints didn’t fade until Nines was out of eyesight of the clearing they had found for camp. He would probably have to deal with a lot more complaining once he returned, but it would be a small price to pay for some time away from his brother. To think, he had been so excited to travel with Connor, to make up some of the time they had been apart, but god, if he had known it would be like signing up for a second shadow, he would have reconsidered this whole thing entirely. 

Pushing aside a branch, Nines shook his head and let out a loud sigh. He had missed Connor, and part of him definitely enjoyed being with someone he trusted so completely… but he wasn’t the same little brother Connor remembered him being. He was an adult, capable of making his own choices. What room did Connor have to judge anyway? He had fallen into worse things with Hank. There were bardic tales about their misadventures— at least Nines hadn’t earned himself that much acclaim with Gavin. 

A loud bang cut through Nines’s thoughts in an instant. He jolted and whipped around, spotting a flock of birds take to the sky off towards the west. Hadn’t… Gavin gone west to find fish? A wave of dread rolled over Nines. 

Something told him that random explosions in the forest would always lead him to that idiotic witcher. 

Setting off in a sprint, Nines cut through the undergrowth and followed the echoing thrum. Another came eventually, sharp and loud. Had Gavin been attacked? Ambushed? It had been a long time since Nines had been in this part of the country; he didn’t remember there being monsters in this particular forest, but a lot of time had passed since then. Anything was possible, and after the shit they had already been through, plenty of possibilities found their way to the forefront of Nines’s mind. 

“Gavin?!” Nines called out once he drew close to where he thought the sounds had come from. He could smell water nearby, so Gavin had to be close, right? He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Gavin?”

“Over here,” came the near instant reply. Nines stumbled, boots caught around his feet as he whipped around and went to the right. The trees were thinner here, the foliage much thicker and greener. An incline met him, and he pushed himself to move quickly up it, especially when he spotted movement just ahead. 

“Gavin?” he called out, a little bit breathless. The witcher was just ahead now, facing away, clearly in the middle of something. Nines smiled despite himself. Images of Gavin’s ripped and bleeding body, of nekkers eating him alive, faded away like a bad dream. Nines wiped away a bit of sweat from his brow and paused when he reached the top of the incline. Behind Gavin was the large, blue-green expanse of a lake. 

There was no sign of what had made those noises from before, but for the sake of seeing Gavin safe and sound, Nines was willing to overlook it. 

Gavin looked away from the lake. His entire expression brightened the moment his eyes met Nines. 

“Oh, look who managed to shake the walking, talking chastity belt that is your brother!” Gavin crowed, moving to meet Nines halfway. Nines braced himself for an embrace, maybe even a kiss, but instead the witcher just rounded on him, circling him as he looked him all over with his fingers laced behind his head. “Hold on, hold on, give me a minute to familiarize myself again. I nearly forgot what you looked like without Connor latched onto you like a fucking leech.”

“Hey,” Nines said without much heat, fighting a smile. The relief was too great to make him want to argue. “That’s my brother you’re talking about.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, don’t I fucking know it.” He grinned then and lowered his arms, resting his hands on his hips. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You here to help me fish?”

From just a quick glance around, Nines wondered if Gavin had been doing much fishing to begin with. There was no sign of a pole or bait, and despite being at it for a few hours, there didn’t seem to be any sign that he had caught any. He was a good fifty yards from the water from this vantage point too. “I don’t know,” Nines said slowly, really confused now. “Do you even know how to fish?”

Gavin scoffed. “Would I have offered to do it if I didn’t know how?” His eyes drifted towards the ledge he had been standing on. Nines spotted an open rucksack on the ground, but he couldn’t see the contents from this angle. “What’d you tell them to get them to let you come out here by yourself?”

Nines returned his attention to Gavin. He crossed his arms and pointedly refused to blush. “I told them I was worried some idiot had gone out into the woods and gotten himself lost,” he retorted, savoring the way Gavin quickly grew indignant. “We all felt it was a viable concern, so here I am. And I feel like you would agree to something you have no experience with. Saving face is important to you, isn’t it? Why would now be any different?”

“Oh, fuck you, princess,” the witcher snorted, turning back around. He stomped over to the open bag on the ground and knelt down to dig a hand around inside it. “I’ve trudged through worse places than this and come out just fine on the other side, and I am an  _ expert  _ fisherman. Just watch this.”

Looking past Gavin and out at the water, Nines slowly narrowed his eyes. Gavin rose back to full height, a long, strange item held in his hand. As he watched, Gavin made the sign of  _ igni  _ with his other hand. A fuse sparked to life. “Cover your ears,” Gavin called out over his shoulder, the only warning he cared to give before throwing the lit bomb into the lake. 

And it was a bomb, Nines realized as he rushed to cover his ears. It was a bomb, one he recognized from the literal arsenal Gavin traveled with at all times, and it was what he had been hearing on the walk over here. The bomb arced gracefully, hit the surface of the water, and less than a second later erupted into a huge spray of water. The bang was muted, but so was Gavin’s manic howl of laughter. Nines stared at the witcher, dumb-founded, and watched as Gavin whirled around and grinned like the idiot he was. 

“Did you see that?” Nines read on his lips, removing his hands from his ears slowly. Gavin gestured at the settling water where half a dozen dead fish now floated. “You must be my good luck charm or something. I barely got anything the last three tries.”

There was a buzzing in Nines’s ears now, and he was pretty sure only part of it was from the blast. He watched Gavin skid down the slope, kicking off his boots as he approached the shore. Nines rushed to follow. “Is that— Do you  _ fish  _ with  _ bombs?”  _ he asked, too stunned to accept that this was Gavin’s preferred method of finding food. 

Shrugging off his shirt, Gavin laughed and dropped it beside his boots. He pushed off the shore and dove gracefully into the water, breaching the surface a moment later. He tread water and grinned cockily at Nines. “Sure beats standing around for hours with a goddamn pole, doesn’t it?” he offered, kicking back to swim languidly towards his floating prey. He grabbed the nearest one and shoved his fingers through the gills. Clearly, he had done this before. He had little trouble gathering the fish and swimming back towards the shore with them. 

The fish hit the ground by Nines’s feet. Gavin lifted himself out of the lake with easy grace, water sluicing off his body in a way that made it difficult to look away. He clearly didn’t mind the chilly air or water. Nines fought to look Gavin in the eye, especially as the man snorted and teased, “What’s the matter? You don’t seem very impressed.”

Nines crossed his arms tightly and pursed his lips, heart beating a little faster than he wanted. “I should’ve expected something so crude from you.” It wasn’t impressive at all; honestly, it was idiotic. How had Gavin not lost a hand yet?

But the dangers and risks obviously weren’t high on the witcher’s list of priorities. Gavin laughed a little as his expression turned lascivious. Nines stiffened as the witcher slowly rose to his full height and stalked a little closer to him. “Crude, huh?” he mused, narrowing his eyes. Still shirtless, a part of Nines’s mind supplied helpfully. Shirtless and… wet. “I thought you liked it when I was _ crude.” _

Every single attempt by Connor to keep him from Gavin rattled through Nines’s mind in the span of one quickened heartbeat. It had been… Gods, he’d grown spoiled, hadn’t he? It hadn’t even been a week and here he was, feeling hot and bothered over just an implicative look, a salacious tone, a… Nines couldn’t help but follow the line of Gavin’s neck down to his collarbones, skimming over the scars and medallion, lower until he reached the hairy planes of the man’s chest. His mouth went dry. 

He suddenly felt… hot. 

Very hot. 

“Oh, somebody looks flustered,” Gavin purred, reaching out to snag Nines by the hips before he could take a step back. “C’mon, tell me the truth. Did you really come all the way out here just to make sure I didn’t get lost?”

Nines swallowed. “Yes.”

Gavin’s eyes dragged down his body. “Heh. You wrecked your boots just to nag me some more?” He leaned closer, the heat of his body burning Nines through his clothes. Their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. “I don’t buy it, sweetheart.”

And then there was that. That… pet name. They hadn’t been alone together since leaving Kaer Morhen, but Nines still remembered vividly the last time Gavin had called him… 

“Sweetheart?” Gavin crooned, pressing his mouth to Nines’s ear. His fingers were cold to Nines as they slipped beneath his shirt, landing on his hips before traveling up his ribs. “Is that what’s got you so flustered? I can hear your heartbeat, Nines. It’s as fast as a fucking rabbit.”

He felt like a rabbit, and Gavin had never felt more like a wolf than in this moment. Nines turned towards his mouth anyway, pressing his lips to Gavin’s. He wedged his hands between them, going for the man’s belt. Pretenses were for people who had time to waste with them; Nines had no such illusions that Connor would wait patiently for him to come back to camp, so if they had the opportunity now, he was going to take it. 

“Someone’s eager,” came the humored reply against his lips. Gavin chuckled and angled away from him a little, giving him more room to get inside his pants. “So, you did want something with me out here. Good to know.”

“Shut up for once,” Nines muttered, dragging down Gavin’s trousers to free his cock to the air. It wasn’t hard yet, but a few quick strokes of his hand fixed that. The familiar weight and heat was so good after so long without it. Gavin let out a low groan, bucking his hips into the touch. Nines turned his lips to the man’s neck. “What does it matter why I’m here? I’m here. Let’s make the most of it.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Gavin’s hands went for his clothing eagerly, yanking open his shirt and dragging down his leggings until the cool air bit at Nines’s bare thighs. Unlike Gavin, he was already wet and ready, the anticipation too much to bear given the thoughts he’d been having the past few days. Nines squirmed and gasped as Gavin worked two fingers between his legs, rubbing at his mound before sliding inside him. 

Gavin let out a whistle. “Get a look at you,” he mused, smiling even as Nines shot him a weak glare. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that. It’s flattering.”

Nines gave Gavin’s cock a threatening squeeze. The man paled a little, his smile wilting at the corners. He extracted his fingers and held his hands aloft in surrender. “Okay, okay, I get it,” he muttered, his cock still giving a wanting twitch against Nines’s palm. “How are we doing this then?”

That, unlike the rest of the drivel coming out of Gavin’s mouth, was actually a good question. Nines looked around carefully, eyeing how close they were to the water and the decided lack of trees. He hadn’t enjoyed it all that much when Gavin had surprised him in the forest before (a lie), but somehow that seemed preferable to the alternatives presenting themselves now. 

“Ground’s always safe,” offered Gavin as if in response to Nines’s thoughts. Nines looked at him critically. Then, he looked at the ground.

“That’s filthy,” he muttered.

Gavin rocked into his hand and wrapped an arm around his hip, grabbing a fistful of ass while he was at it. “That’s why there’s a lake real close,” he said, a decided rasp in his voice that wasn’t there before. “To clean you up afterwards.”

Nines grimaced, but didn’t have much time to do beyond that. Gavin was laughing in his ear, his other hand coming around to box him in and drag him towards the dirt. Nines might have fought it harder if he hadn’t been desperate for it. His knees met the dirt and Gavin pushed him down further, sacrificing Nines’s shirt in the pursuit of sexual gratification. 

“Feels like a year since I last got you like this,” Gavin murmured, hitching Nines’s thighs over his hips. He dipped down, running his mouth over Nines’s neck, leaving a bright pink trail in the wake of his beard. His cock was firm, wet, and hot against Nines’s skin, present in a way that made him want to squirm. “That fucking brother of yours is a nightmare.”

“Don’t talk about my brother with your cock between my legs,” Nines answered, digging his nails into the man’s shoulders as a warning. “Hurry up and get inside me already.”

A snort. “You want me to rush this?” Gavin’s hands, still a little cold from his dunk in the river, ran down Nines’s chest, sending gooseflesh down his skin. “I haven’t gotten to stand next to you in a fucking week, let alone touch you. Forgive me if I want to take my time.”

Nines clenched down on nothing, that cock burning a line against his thigh. A whine was building in his throat, his hands scrambling for Gavin’s biceps. “Come on,” he panted, going a little cross eyed as Gavin sucked a mark just beneath his jaw, going for every sensitive spot he knew. “They’ll come looking for us.”

“Nah,” came the wet reply against his ear, punctuated with a nip. “You think Hank didn’t know what you were planning when you slipped away? We wolves look out for one another. If he doesn’t have a hand down your brother’s pants this very moment I’ll eat my fucking sword.”

“S-Stop talking about my brother!” 

A cool hand slid between Nines’s legs, the meat of Gavin’s palm rubbing his clit while his fingers slipped inside. Nines’s complaints turned into a shrill mewl. “You’re fucking wet for me no matter what I say,” Gavin growled, the pupils in his eyes flooding the iris. “Maybe I should get my mouth on you for a bit instead. See how much I can make you scream for it—”

The grip Nines had on Gavin’s shoulders turned vicious, and in a wild bid to avoid certain torture, he found his body moving without much conscious thought on his part. Maybe it was from the idea of Gavin’s mouth between his thighs, or maybe just from the pent-up need that had built in him for the past week. Nines didn’t think too hard on it. He just used every inch he had over the witcher to put Gavin on his back as quickly as he possibly could.

Gavin’s breath rushed out of him in an audible woosh. Nines pushed him down when he instinctively tried to sit back up, and for some reason, the witcher let him. The hand around his cock probably helped with that; Nines squeezed the hot flesh and rubbed it along his entrance. He groaned weakly as he speared himself on Gavin’s cock, planting his hands on the witcher’s chest to give him the leverage he needed to lift himself and drop back down. 

A weak rush of some half-forgotten language left Nines’s lips. It felt so fucking  _ good.  _ Gods. How had it only been a few days? He’d gone weeks without feeling this, sometimes even months. How was it that only a few days without Gavin’s touch got him this wound up? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Gavin crowed, throwing his head back even as his hands flew to Nines’s hips. He braced his feet and bucked off the ground, timing it perfectly to match up to Nines’s frantic bouncing. Nines let out a choked cry when he sank even deeper, hitting that spot inside that made it hard to keep his eyes open. 

“Yeah, you like that,” Gavin breathed, no doubt sensing it. His hands tightened around Nines’s hips. “You look so good like this, sweetheart. Gonna make you scream for me. You want that? You want me to make you come all over my cock?”

Nines whined, his arms buckling until he laid on Gavin’s chest, sloppily kissing the witcher without an ounce of grace to his name. It made it hard to bounce, but that didn’t matter. Gavin was strong, stronger than him, and his arms lifted him easily, his hips doing the rest of the work for him. 

It was filthy. It was frantic. There were concussed, dead fish laying not even five feet from them, but given how long it had been, Nines couldn’t find it in himself to change a single thing about it. Gavin’s mouth was hot, wet, his tongue eager and his eyes locked on him as if he’d never seen anything better. 

Nines lifted a hand and cupped Gavin’s cheek. Gavin’s beard had grown longer since the last time they had kissed. It tickled his lips, rubbing them a little raw. Clenching around Gavin’s cock, Nines rolled his entire body against Gavin’s, dragging his skin along the witcher’s hairy chest. The contact was… so good. So fucking good. It sang along every nerve in his body, lighting him up until he burned like a wildfire. 

Tearing his mouth away to breathe, Nines found himself gasping Gavin’s name helplessly. Those burning hands traveled up his waist, stroking along his ribs, transferring that contact higher until it rattled through his bones. Gavin swore, the rhythm stuttering. “God, you keep clenching,” he gasped, swiping the calloused pad of his thumb over Nines’s nipple. “So fucking tight. You’re gonna make me come.”

“Is that my fault?” Nines moaned, every muscle in his body contracting at the stimulation. His eyes were beginning to water, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He was so wet that every time he rocked against Gavin, he slid a little, slick and damp. Gavin was so hard inside him. He wasn’t crying because of that. He absolutely wasn’t. The tears pouring down his cheeks was from stimulation, he told himself. Not need. 

A hand cupped his cheek. Gavin wiped away some of his tears. “Of course it’s your fault,” the man hissed, bucking harder just to jostle Nines and send him into a twitching, clenching fit. “Fucking shit, Nines. You’re so fucking sexy. Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Maybe it was from denial. Maybe it was just because they hadn’t done this in so long. Nines wasn’t sure, couldn’t be certain, but he blamed everything else but the truth on why he closed his eyes and gave up the last of his control. “Oh, fuck. Gavin, please. Please, I need it. Please,” he begged, pitching forward to wrap his arms around Gavin’s shoulders. He rocked against the man frantically, but he was so wet that there was hardly any friction left. 

A hand immediately went to his back, rubbing him comfortingly. Still, Gavin’s hips continued to move, firm, insistent. “What do you need, sweetheart?” came a low, husky voice in his ear. Gavin rubbed his stubbled cheek against his, eliciting more shivers than Nines knew what to do with. “Come on, tell me what you want. It’s been so long, hasn’t it? Do you need it? Do you need my cock?”

Nines nodded helplessly. He twisted his hips, rubbing more than bouncing now. Gavin gripped him firmly in response, and within a few seconds he had Nines crying out loudly. Every last ounce of strength Gavin had went into lifting him physically, ramming his hips upwards just as Nines came slamming back down. Once, twice, three times— Nines threw back his head and sobbed as his orgasm swept over him, clenching hard around Gavin until the witcher curled up, shoulders off the ground, to sink his teeth into Nines’s shoulder. It would leave a bruise, but Nines hardly cared. He just held Gavin tighter and savored the contact while he had it, because the moment they returned to camp…

“So fucking good,” Gavin groaned, his entire body going lax all at once. His cock didn’t immediately soften inside Nines, but he still made an effort to pull off of it. It left a wet trail down the inside of his thigh. Gavin’s ejaculate followed suit a moment later, and that just made him groan even louder. 

“God, I think you’ve ruined me,” he wheezed, running a hand down Nines’s back. His shirt was clinging desperately to his shoulders, but with a few gentle tugs it joined the rest of their clothing in the dirt. “Where the hell did all of that come from? I think you fucked up my spine bouncing like that.”

“Good,” Nines mumbled, too tingly and warm to summon up the energy to be mad. He could feel the dirt on his knees, the leaves in his hair. Gavin’s cum was a mess all its own, one he didn’t relish cleaning up. He tilted his head and pressed his lips tiredly to Gavin’s jawline. “You deserve it. I hate you.”

Both arms wound themselves around Nines at that, Gavin’s chest rumbling with his laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I’m the worst and you’re the best. That’s why you keep me around, huh.” His lips met Nines’s temple. “To fuck you senseless and ruin your clothes.”

“And to piss off my brother,” Nines said. 

A snort. “Ah, yeah. I definitely do that.” Another kiss, this one landing on his cheek. “He’s gonna kill me the second we get back, isn’t he.”

“Probably,” Nines said. There would be no way to hide the evidence, even if they did wash off the filth. Connor would take one look at him and see it in his face, in the way they moved around each other. Nines could feel the leash tightening from just imagining it. He closed his eyes and smiled despite it. He’d just figure out another way to get some alone time with Gavin. Sooner or later Connor would figure out that he didn’t need protecting. 

Until then, he’d just see how far he could push his luck.


	13. Chapter 13

The portal opened up in a lonely tavern room, depositing Connor and Nines beside a suspiciously mussed bed. Connor eyed it critically as his brother rushed towards the open set of trunks in the corner. 

“This shouldn’t take long,” Nines assured him, face turned away and movements more than a little harried. “You really didn’t need to come with me.”

Connor wrinkled his nose as he picked at the corner of a sheet, lifting it away to bare the mattress beneath. “Oh, I really did need to come,” he murmured, dropping the fabric to wipe his fingers on his trouser leg. In a place like this? Really, Nines? Really? He turned back to face his brother. “We need to talk. This gives us some time to do it.”

Nines’s shoulders stiffened. He paused, stooped over his trunk, a few articles of clothing haphazardly strewn over the lid and floor. “Talk?” he said, voice tight and artificially casual. “I thought we did that already.”

Sidling over, Connor leaned against the wall nearest to his brother. He stared at him until Nines finally looked at him. “Without the audience,” he said crisply, taking in how pale Nines still was. They hadn’t rested enough yet to put some color back in his cheeks, and Connor knew better than most how much these sorts of things could linger. “How are you feeling?” he asked, softer this time. It still felt so surreal how close he had come to losing Nines to that illusion. If he’d been any later, if Hank hadn’t been there to help him… 

Nines slowly relaxed, shrugging as he averted his eyes. He tossed a few more clothes inside the trunk and closed the lid with a sigh. “Worn out.”

“You’re lucky you don’t feel worse.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear by now.” Nines rose to his feet and snatched a satchel from the foot of the bed, opening it to check the contents. “If you’re going to lecture me away from the others, just get it over with already. Playing coy doesn’t suit you.”

“And playing the fool hardly suits you any better,” Connor returned, narrowing his eyes. He cast another glare at the mussed bed, the  _ single  _ bed in the room. “Did you at least remember anything about the spell that might give us an idea of who is responsible?”

Nines sighed. “I don’t know.” He pulled out a shirt and set to changing out of the one he’d borrowed from Connor that morning, angling himself towards the wall as he stripped and left Connor to his own devices. “The illusion didn’t have any unique characteristics to it. I only know what I saw, so I can’t speak to the other victims, but it didn’t seem specific to any of the usual suspects.”

Connor hummed, taking in the expanse of his brother’s pale back. Something unsettling churned in his stomach at the sight of a few new scars laid over his muscles. Those hadn’t been there the last time they had been together. How much had changed in the years they had been apart? Too much, evidently, since he barely understood Nines these days. 

“What did you see?” he asked, trying for nonchalant but still drawing Nines’s attention over his shoulder. 

“Why ask questions you don’t want the answers to?” his brother muttered, shrugging on his shirt and lacing up the front. “It’ll just piss you off.”

“If it helps us find whoever is responsible for this, I think I can handle being pissed off.”

Nines snorted, going back to his satchel. “I don’t agree.”

Connor’s hands balled up into fists at his side. He remembered how Nines had looked coming out of that tower, of how every word that fell from his lips was about the one person he shouldn’t have cared about at all. “You saw Gavin in there, didn’t you?” he delivered flatly, staring his brother down. “What happened? Did it seem like you had killed him? That he was already dead?”

Stilling, Nines turned his face towards the wall. “Connor.”

Crossing his arms, Connor went on, “You called out to me from leagues away, Nines. Do you know what I heard when you called? I heard you calling Gavin’s name. Begging me to help him.”

Nines whirled around, eyes flaring. “So, what? Why are you so fixated on who I’m sleeping with?”

Connor bared his teeth. “Why are you defending him? You radiated your affection for him and that illusion clearly sensed where your priorities were, enough that it managed to overwhelm you entirely. We aren’t supposed to have weaknesses like that, Nines! That isn’t how we were raised.”

Nines balked, his expression flattening at the mention of their upbringing. It had been centuries since either of them had spoken Amanda’s name aloud, but her rules had never truly left them, no matter how far they ran or how powerful they had become without her. “It’s not his fault,” he said bitterly, glaring at the floor when he couldn’t quite meet Connor’s eyes. “Don’t blame him for what happened there.”

It didn’t matter if Gavin had a hand in what happened or not. No matter his involvement, it didn’t change the fact that he had gotten involved with Nines and made Nines vulnerable. But why? Why would Nines let himself open like that? Connor narrowed his eyes. “Is all of this... because you’ve fallen for him?” 

Instead of balking, Nines froze. A rush of color hit his cheeks, and Connor had his answer. A scowl tugged at his lips as he went on, “That’s it, isn’t it? Are you so blinded by what his cock can do that you refuse to see the danger he’s putting you in? Entanglements lead to weakness, Nines. I thought you understood that.”

A heated, furious blush tinged Nines’s ears. He shot a disgusted look Connor’s way before throwing the satchel down on top of the trunk. “Since when has it ever been your business who I fuck?”

“Since I had to come drag your insensate body from a tower because you decided to involve yourself with a danger-prone simpleton!” His voice rose to the point of yelling by the time he finished, and Connor was a little gratified they were leaving soon because they most certainly had been heard. He sucked in a stabilizing breath and forced himself to lower his voice. “I’m not telling you how to live your life, Nines—”

“That’s exactly what it sounds like to me,” his brother interjected coldly. Worn out as he was, drained as he was, he still waved his hand and sent out a burst of weak magic that collected the rest of his belongings and stacked them by the wall. What little color he had disappeared in the wake of the action though. Nines stumbled. Connor rushed forward to brace his brother before he could fall. 

“You’re all I have left in this world, Nines,” Connor tried, holding on even when Nines made a token effort to push him away. “I know we’ve gone our separate ways, but you’re still my brother. I can’t just turn a blind eye to you throwing away your common sense just because a witcher asked you to.”

Silence descended between them. Nines didn’t try to shrug him off again. He looked at the ground and let out a tired sigh. When he spoke, his voice was wry as he muttered, “Like you have any room to talk.”

Connor’s jaw tensed. That was fair, even if it did sting. “Maybe I’m speaking from a place of experience,” he said tightly. He waved his hand and summoned a portal to take them back to Kaer Morhen. With any luck Hank would have things packed and ready for their departure. This talk hadn’t been very productive, but perhaps Hank had more luck. “I’ve suffered my fair share of hardships because of who I chose to share my bed with. But I keep my distance too. I have boundaries. Witchers... aren’t stable influences, Nines. Especially one like Gavin. If you’re serious about him—” 

“It’s not like that,” Nines said, crossing his arms as the portal emerged from the air like a heat shimmer. He shrugged off Connor’s hands and seemed to put considerable effort into walking as if he felt none of the damage that had been done to him. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s… It was just a business arrangement. He doesn’t feel the same either way.”

Connor lowered his hand. He stared at his little brother’s back—not so little anymore when put against the backdrop of the undulating mass of magic—before looking away. “Good,” he said crisply, levitating the rest to follow them through the portal. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

\---

“You should have let me go with him,” Connor muttered under his breath, trying once more to cast off Hank’s heavy arm from around his shoulders. He shot a glare at the witcher and frowned deeper when the man simply turned to kiss his cheek. “There’s no telling what sort of trouble he could get into out there on his own.”

The hand around his shoulders slid down to wrap around his waist. Hank pulled him flush against his side as he let out a low laugh that rumbled through Connor’s chest like thunder. “He’s an adult, Con. He can look after himself.”

“Do you call getting himself trapped in a malignant illusion ‘looking after himself, Hank?” Connor retorted waspishly, crossing his arms even as he fought to ignore the prolonged contact. It struck him that they were alone too, and after traveling for so long with minimal—if any—privacy, the thought was more than distracting. Still, he pushed on. “He’s my little brother. It’s my job to keep him safe.”

Hank sighed and lowered his mouth to Connor’s nape. “Con, he’s almost taller than I am. He’s not little anymore.” The drag of his beard against Connor’s skin was… unfortunately distracting enough to keep him from immediately formulating a response. 

“That’s… He’s my little brother,” Connor muttered, caught between pushing Hank away and shivering. “It doesn’t matter how big he gets. I won’t let him get hurt when there’s something I can do about it.” He bared his teeth even as Hank began to sneak his fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. Connor glared at the forest, something in his gut guiding his gaze in the direction he felt Gavin had disappeared. “He’s going to get hurt if he keeps throwing himself in with that idiot’s lot.”

“Which idiot is that?” 

Connor shot Hank an annoyed look. “Gavin. Obviously.”

Hank sighed loudly at that. “Con, I get you don’t like him, but Gavin really isn’t all that bad.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Connor sniped. “You witchers have to stick together.”

“Well, given that we’ve saved each other’s skins time and time again…” Hank trailed off, fingers fiddling with the patch of skin just above Connor’s hipbone. “Look, I just think you’re not being very objective about all of this. Give him a chance. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

Connor glared at Hank. “Or maybe he’ll get my brother killed with another one of his harebrained schemes.” He purposefully looked down at Hank’s hand. “And what about you? Are you content to let them both out of our sight like this? Aren’t you worried at all?”

Hank made a show of dragging his eyes down Connor’s body. “Worried? Can’t say that I am.”

Of course, Hank wouldn’t worry. Connor rolled his eyes but couldn’t quite bring himself to reject the arm drawing him closer to the man’s side. “Well, I’m glad you’re able to tear your thoughts away from the situation. I, for one, can’t stop…” Hank began to kiss along the line of his neck, distracting Connor from his train of thought. Turning towards Hank’s lips, he finished, “Can’t stop thinking about it.”

The conversation morphed into a kiss without effort or thought. Hank cupped Connor’s cheek and guided it slowly, savoring it in a way that set flutters through Connor’s stomach. It was comfortable and familiar and just a little bit furtive after going so long without their usual displays of affection. Hank’s free hand went for Connor’s blouse, unlacing it and loosening it before breaking the kiss with a smirk. 

“I think I can come up with a few ways to get your mind off it,” Hank murmured, smoothly sliding off the log to settle on his knees between Connor’s thighs. Connor colored, averting his eyes. They had been in the middle of a conversation, so he really should have dissuaded this sort of distraction. But, it was hard to be angry when Hank was this charming and earnest. Come to think of it, that was probably how they survived all the arguments they always seemed to get into. Hank would shrug it off and put on that special smile of his and Connor would find himself knocked off balance, his cheeks hot and his body more eager for contact than the rest of him was for more arguing. 

“Really,” he replied, aiming for dry but coming up parched instead. Hank’s hands were heavy and warm against his thighs, his thumbs kneading at the tender muscle as if to remind him how long it had been since he’d last relaxed. “What kind of ideas?”

Hank hummed, moving his hands higher as he made a show of thinking the question over. “Well, you’re so tense these days,” he reasoned, shifting his hold from Connor’s thighs to their undersides, working his way higher and higher until he practically cupped Connor’s ass out from under him. “Seems to me it might be prudent to do something about that.”

“Oh?” Connor murmured, lifting himself ever so slightly to aid Hank in tugging down his trousers. “What sort of something?”

Hank made a show of licking his lips. “I don’t know,” he teased, eyeing Connor’s crotch with clear intent. “It’s on the tip of my tongue though. Figured I’d see where it leads me and go from there.”

A shiver of heat tore down Connor’s spine. That was… Well then. He supposed he couldn’t be  _ that  _ annoyed at the man if he had that kind of thing in mind. Connor felt a smile grace his lips, his hips shifting in Hank’s hands. He glanced off towards the trees and debated the pros and cons of indulging a little. They really hadn’t had much alone time since they set out, and with things being as they were, Connor couldn’t say he wasn’t stressed… 

Hank’s fingers curled around his waistband, tugging the fabric down a scant inch. “What do you say?” he asked, voice low, husky, promising. “That sound good to you?”

Connor bit his lip and raised his hips. “Don’t drag this out if you’re going to do it,” Connor said sharply, almost falling off the log in his haste to get his trousers down his legs. Hank helped, shucking them with ease, pulling one leg over his boot to avoid having to unlace them in order to get between them. Connor colored messily at his enthusiasm, but his eyes kept straying towards the tree line. “Nines isn’t going far.”

“You know he’s not hunting for mushrooms out there, right?” Hank asked, brow raised. He glanced down between Connor’s legs, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he slowly met Connor’s gaze. “Heh. At least, not anymore than you are from the looks of things.”

Connor bared his teeth, bracing his boot on Hank’s shoulder. “Hank,” he said in a silken, warning tone. 

“Yeah, yeah,” the man sighed, squeezing Connor’s thighs with his big hands. Connor didn’t get the sense it was in apology though, not with the way Hank was looking at him. “I get it. He’s definitely not with Gavin right now, getting—”

Kicking him wouldn’t be enough, so Connor made the executive decision to wrap his thighs around Hank’s head. With one swift pull he had the witcher’s face buried between his legs, his words muffled by damp flesh. Connor let out a short huff and Hank’s shoulders rattled as he began to laugh. His tongue rolled over Connor’s entrance in feigned apology. 

“If you’re going to piss me off with that mouth, I’m going to just use it for my own ends,” Connor warned him, voice wavering only slightly. He knew Hank didn’t mind, hell, he probably found it all according to plan. He certainly seemed to take to the task with proper gusto, gripping Connor’s thighs in either hand as the flat of his tongue lapped at his folds eagerly. The heat in Connor’s belly hit him hard, his breathing going ragged and his posture loosening until he was half folded over the witcher’s head. “Oh, fuck, Hank,” he gasped, combing his fingers through Hank’s hair. “Please. More.”

Hot, humid breath rolled over his skin as Hank exhaled with a shudder. He dipped his tongue inside Connor, startling a choked cry from him, before easing back out to lap at his clit. One of his hands left a thigh, his fingers joining his tongue to tease and roll and prod. It felt good. Better than good, but Connor still wanted to smack Hank upside the head for it. How long had it been since the man washed his hands?

He didn’t have time to think about it. He barely had time to get angry. Hank was good with his mouth, and he was good with his filthy hands. Connor covered his mouth with a hand to smother the sounds pouring out of him, his eyes straying back towards the trees instinctively. If Nines really were just out fetching mushrooms and roots, he could be back at any moment. Hank’s words from before rose up like an ill-timed breeze. Did he want his little brother to be off with Gavin, doing only god knows what, so long as it meant he and Hank could carry on uninterrupted? 

Like trying to find traction on ice, the thought didn’t get far before slipping out of his range of awareness. The gentle scrape of Hank’s beard against his bare skin saw to that, and it saw to it thoroughly. He might have felt guilty if he’d let himself have the awareness to do as much, but it was much easier to just go along with what Hank was doing, losing himself to the sensation. 

“There we go,” Hank growled against his flesh, voice low, hands firm and active as they sought out every well-learned crevice that made Connor’s toes curl inside his boots. “That’s better, isn’t it? You feel good like this, Con? Fuck, you taste good.”

“D-Don’t say that so casually,” Connor gasped, bracing a hand on his seat to keep from toppling backwards. 

“Why not? It’s true.” He could hear the smile in Hank’s voice as he said it, could sense the man’s sincerity as he went back to work, prodding with his tongue until Connor had to smack a hand over his mouth to stifle his choked moan. 

As if to make his point, Hank worked two fingers inside and crooked them just so. Connor stiffened and felt a gush of slick drip down his folds, coating Hank’s fingers and hand— but only for a minute, only for a scant second before Hank made a show of lapping it all up. Connor’s face burned hot, his breathing tripping over itself as he bore down on Hank’s fingers. So good. It felt so goddamn good after so much stress and work, and Connor couldn’t bear to wait for what he hoped would come next. 

He tipped his head up towards the sky, taking in the clear blue hidden behind boughs of emerald green trees. The scent of sweat and musk and pine filled his nose with every breath he took. A gentle breeze cooled the sweat on his fevered cheeks. “Hank,” he whispered, dragging his fingers through Hank’s hair, looking down at the witcher buried between his thighs. “Please,” he begged, the only time he ever begged anyone for anything. “Please, please.” 

Hank patted his thighs comfortingly, sucking on his clit with renewed intensity. Connor ached for a bed, for something more comfortable to lay on, for that breeze to touch every inch of him instead of just the scant patches of bare skin he could expose when he wasn’t sure how long they would remain alone. He rubbed himself against Hank’s mouth, riding his fingers. What he wouldn’t give to have a bed beneath them now, Hank on top of him, pressing him into a mattress. He wanted to ride Hank under the bed broke. He wanted to lace his fingers with Hank’s and lose himself in the witcher, to pretend that they were the only ones in the entire universe— or at least the only ones that mattered. 

The way Hank kissed and sucked at him echoed the thoughts going through Connor’s head. They weren’t used to being this furtive, this desperate for a quick, uninterrupted release. Connor and Hank used to travel together often. They would stay in inns or taverns when they could, but there were many nights where Connor lay beside Hank, staring at him with just the dying embers of a fire for light. The stars would be bright and reflecting in Hank’s eyes, and one of them would inevitably close the distance between them, hand falling to a quickening chest, lips brushing searching lips… The solitude was a blessing then, and the memories were beautiful. 

This felt like that, Connor realized, but even in the earliest of his memories of them together he couldn’t recall ever feeling pressed for time. At least, not like this. Hank eased off, fluttering kisses along his trembling inner thighs. Connor should have chastised him for that, for wasting time. He didn’t though. He just appreciated it instead. 

“Just like old times,” Hank murmured against a particularly sensitive spot, lifting his eyes to meet Connor’s. “We haven’t done something like this in awhile.”

“Probably for good reason,” Connor answered breathlessly, biting down on his bottom lip to keep from begging Hank for more. He couldn’t keep his thighs from twitching though, or his fingers from locking into Hank’s hair. “We’re a little too old to be fucking in the woods every day.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t look a day over thirty,” Hank teased, his smile crinkling the lines around his eyes. “I think your days of forest fucking haven’t passed you by yet.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” He and Hank had both lived multitudes before they ever crossed paths with one another. Fidgeting a little, Connor tugged on Hank’s hair. “Should you really be chatting right now? Don’t you have a better use for your mouth?”

“I see how it is,” Hank sighed, making sure to ghost his hot, damp breath over Connor’s dripping mound. “We never just talk anymore, do we, Con? It’s enough to make a man feel a little used.”

“This was your idea!” Connor hissed, his aggravation taking a sharp turn towards exhilaration when Hank gave up his pretenses and laved his tongue over his clit. His eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth falling open to let out a ragged moan. Hank’s laughter was a special kind of torment when applied between his legs, and every low vibration threatened to topple Connor off his perch at any second. 

The threat became a viable concern a few seconds later. Connor’s hands, sweaty and shaking, slipped on the log beneath him. Hank caught him by the hips before he could break his nose, and he pulled away to give him a quick once over. It turned into a leer. 

“You’re really close, aren’t you?” 

Connor struggled to glower. “What was your first clue?”

Hank slapped him lightly on the flank, coaxing him to turn over. “Up, up,” he said, using both hands when Connor didn’t quite get his intentions right away. He pulled Connor onto his hands and knees, folding him over the log. Connor colored messily, a retort on the tip of his tongue, but Hank silenced him easily with the return of his hand between his legs. “Wanna finish you off like this,” the witcher said, draping himself over the slope of Connor’s spine, his damp lips to his ear. “Hard and fast. Just the way you like it.”

Before Connor could ask what he intended to do, those fingers were back inside of him, and not just  _ inside  _ him, but active too. Connor threw back his head as Hank treated his hand like a piston, fucking into him rapidly and without a shred of mercy to be found. His thighs immediately began to tremble, his arms threatening to buckle beneath the onslaught. The pleasure was a furious, debilitating thing. Hank’s weight, scent, and laughter just made it all the worse. 

“That’s it, that’s what I wanna see,” he murmured, rocking his own erection against the back of Connor’s thigh. It just made Connor’s mouth water, feeling that firm, solid length so close and yet so far. “You feeling good, Con? Oh, I can hear it in your voice. Gods, you’re so fucking sexy. Love you like this.”

“H-Hank,” Connor wheezed, tears filling his eyes. His breath was punched from his lungs with every sharp jab of Hank’s fingers, his inner thighs drenched in slick that wouldn’t stop flowing. There would be a damp patch on the dirt at this rate, one he’d have to clean up before Nines got back. Oh, god, would… Would Gavin be able to smell it? A witcher’s senses were sharper than a normal human’s. The thought of him knowing, of Hank making him a mess like this in the middle of their camp, as if he  _ wanted  _ to make it known— 

Connor tore at the grass beneath his hands. He swore loudly and rocked back desperately on Hank’s hand. His knees wanted to lift off the ground, his body undulating and pulsing, his heartbeat pounding away between his ears so loudly that he could barely make sense of anything around him. Every ounce of strength in Hank’s body seemed to be channeling into his movements. Every pump of his hand sent Connor that much higher. Every rough growl in his ear tightened his body like a spring, daring him to snap and come undone. 

It was infuriating, that. It was infuriating how good Hank was at taking him apart, at making him want to lose all control and give it up to him. Dangerous. Connor tossed back his head and felt saliva roll down his chin. He’d fallen too far for Hank’s charms. Had he really let himself be this weak for the man?

Of course he had. It had been too easy to fall for his rugged good looks and tragic lifestyle, and the Djinn wish had just solidified it once and for all. Connor felt the tips of Hank’s fingers work over the spot inside him that sent absolute fire through his veins. Bad decisions went with witchers like bread and wine to the devout. Connor pitched forward and raised his hips towards the sky. And gods, he knew that was true. He’d never been much for fate or destiny, but Hank’s touch alone made him believe they were connected in ways beyond his ken. 

His orgasm hit without much fanfare, a long foregone conclusion they both had been expecting at any moment. Connor let out a broken version of the witcher’s name, electricity tearing through his extremities until he could barely feel his fingers or toes at all. Little hiccups of feeling jolted down his spine, his vision going from white to black to blurry. He opened his eyes and fought to catch his breath. He rolled over with a weak groan and braced himself on Hank’s shoulders when the man began to pull away. 

Hank’s smile was still damp when it moved into his range of sight, wide, and smoldering as he drew his sleeve over his messy chin. His eyes glinted as they looked lower. Connor couldn’t help but follow them down to the front of Hank’s trousers. 

“What?” Connor gasped, already sensing the bad idea forming on the man’s lips. “What’s that look for?”

“Nothing much. Just musing on something.” Hank let his hands fondle Connor’s hips and thighs, spreading him wider to see the aftermath of his efforts firsthand. He grinned wider at the sight before meeting Connor’s gaze. “Still want to run off into the woods and play your brother’s chaperone?” the witcher asked. “Or do you think I can tempt you into giving him a little more time alone?”

Connor colored. He tore his eyes away from the bulge in Hank’s pants and gripped the man firmly by the hair. He was a terrible brother, wasn’t he? A terrible, terrible brother—perhaps even a bit of a hypocrite—and yet still too horny to let it upset him enough to stop. 

“Shut up and fuck me,” he ordered, hooking his legs around the witcher’s thick waist. 

They only had so long to take advantage, and Nines would understand. Probably. Even if he didn’t, Connor was sure Nines owed him one either way. 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, leave a comment if you enjoyed this! check me out on twitter @tdcloud_writes for more dbh funtimes, and if you liked this you might wanna check out my original work too, which can be found on tdcloudofficial.com. until next time!


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